Unexpected character in input: '\' (ASCII=92) state=1

Question

My client says he is getting this error using my script:

Warning: Unexpected character in input: '\' (ASCII=92) state=1 in /path/to//header.php  on line 34
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING or '(' in/path/to/header.php  on line 34

The line 34 in header.php is just use \Main\Class;

Now, I told him he has to have PHP >= 5.3.0 and he says his PHP version is 5.3.24

What could be the problem?

EDIT: The lines before and after

30. // Define absolute path
31. define("ABSPATH", $abs_path);
32. $_SESSION["abs_path"] = ABSPATH;
33. 
34. use \CNS\main\CNS;
35. $cns = new CNS();

EDIT 2:

He sent me this:

Program     Version
Apache:     2.2.24
CentOS:     CentOS release 6.4 (Final)
cPanel:     11.36.1 (build 8)
Curl:       7.12.1
MySQL       5.5.30
phpMyAdmin  3.5.5
Python:     2.6.6
Program     Version
Perl:       5.8.8
**PHP:        5.3.24**
ionCube Loader:     4.2.2
Zend Optimizer:     3.3.9
Ruby:       1.8.7
Rails:      3.2.8
OpenSSL:    1.0.0-fips

`@OP` I think you may have to show us your full code, if at all possible, unless `Jessica` can figure this one out without it. — Funk Forty Niner, Jun 17 '13 at 20:37
@Fred There is not much before that, just checking if there is a variable that says the script is installed, and after this code the html begins. — bosniamaj, Jun 17 '13 at 20:42
@bosniamaj Could be an `php safe mode` issue. (if it's set to **ON**). Try setting it to **OFF** and see if that works. — Funk Forty Niner, Jun 17 '13 at 20:42
@bosniamaj So, any luck? And, have you looked into my `php safe mode` comment? — Funk Forty Niner, Jun 17 '13 at 21:00
@Fred Yes, thank you. I will look into it, I am waiting for his reply. I want him to send show me the file with `phpinfo()`, then I will try with safe mode if the version is greater than 5.3. — bosniamaj, Jun 17 '13 at 21:04
@bosniamaj Ok, I hope it works out for the best, cheers. *Keep us posted* — Funk Forty Niner, Jun 17 '13 at 21:05
@bosniamaj And now, have you looked into `php safe mode`? Under **Configure Command** using ``, did you or he see `enable-safe-mode=yes` or `enable-safe-mode=no`?. As well as under **Directive** `safe_mode Off - Off` (local and master values). — Funk Forty Niner, Jun 17 '13 at 23:46
Says his hosting provider checked that the safe mode is Off. — bosniamaj, Jun 18 '13 at 07:59

score 40 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 17 '13 at 20:39

40

This happens if you are trying to use namespaces but do not have PHP 5.3. PHP 5.2 and below don't support namespaces and throw this error when they see the backslash.

-- Edit: mixed up the versions. It's 5.2 and below that don't have namespaces, if I'm not mistaken.

answered Jun 17 '13 at 20:39

jraede

6,846
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1

5.3 does support namespaces, you probably meant 5.2 and below – salathe Jun 17 '13 at 20:39
1

Factual inaccuracies make the answer not-very-useful, even if they're little brain farts. +1 for fixing it. – salathe Jun 17 '13 at 20:43
@jraede , I currently have php 5.1. Is there any solution? for a version of php 5.1? – Francisco Acevedo Dec 14 '18 at 16:52

score 13 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

13

Now, I told him he has to have PHP >= 5.3.0 and he says his PHP version is 5.3.24

What could be the problem?

His PHP version is actually < 5.3.0, whether he knows that or not.

See the error occurring on many PHP versions.

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

1
1

answered Jun 17 '13 at 20:39

salathe

51,324
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Well, he is telling me it is 5.3.24. He didn't make a file with `phpinfo()` when I asked him to, but he copied some stats (probably from cpanel or something). I posted his reply as my EDIT 2 in my post. – bosniamaj Jun 17 '13 at 22:44

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 25 '15 at 17:35

2

If you get 'unexpected T_STRING' error after your mentioned error, you need to install PHP 5.4+

answered Jun 25 '15 at 17:35

Mojtaba

4,852
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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 17 '13 at 20:41

1

Ask him to create a file with phpinfo(). He probably doesn't have PHP version >= 5.3.0.

answered Jun 17 '13 at 20:41

silkfire

24,585
15
82
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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 27 '14 at 21:58

1

<FilesMatch "\.(inc|php|php3|php4|php44|php5|php52|php53|php54|php55|php56|phtml|phps)$">

 AddHandler x-httpd-php53 .php

</FilesMatch>

in .htaccess

answered Oct 27 '14 at 21:58

Popov Andrey

21
2

caos30 · Answer 6 · 2019-01-02T05:10:53.037

Like other users say: use of namespaces are only valid for PHP versions greater than 5.3.0 so my solution for be able to include an optional use of a library using namespaces is to check the php version and use the eval() function to avoid that lower versions of PHP shoot an error, even on compilation time.

Something like this:

if ( phpversion() > '5.3.0' ){
    include_once('/path/to/Library.php'); 
    eval("Library\Foo::bar();"); 
}

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 31 '16 at 00:57

I ran the same problem, and doing some research I managed to fix it. In my case, I use PHP7, and what I had to do is edit the file laravel located in ~/.composer/vendor/laravel/installer/, where the shebang line was #!/usr/bin/env php I changed to #!/usr/bin/env php7

After run again the artisan, I got it working:

-bash-3.2$ laravel
Laravel Installer version 1.3.3

Usage:
  command [options] [arguments]

Options:
  -h, --help            Display this help message
  -q, --quiet           Do not output any message
  -V, --version         Display this application version
      --ansi            Force ANSI output
      --no-ansi         Disable ANSI output
  -n, --no-interaction  Do not ask any interactive question
  -v|vv|vvv, --verbose  Increase the verbosity of messages: 1 for normal output, 2 for more verbose output and 3 for debug

Available commands:
  help  Displays help for a command
  list  Lists commands
  new   Create a new Laravel application.

actully i was looking for this thanks mate you explained very well (y) — Faisal Mehmood Awan, Jan 27 '17 at 06:45

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Mar 26 '23 at 11:17

In my case I was running Vagrant with Virtualbox, and there is known bug with Oracle with the sendfile system call, that causes files to be read only partially if it's on the shared folder. Possible fixes include adding to the nginx config

 sendfile off;

But this doesn't always help. In my latest case, just editing the file (add a comment or space), saving it again, and finally restarting php-fpm helped.

Unexpected character in input: '\' (ASCII=92) state=1

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