PHP error using parenthesis in if construction

Question

When I use this if construction with parenthesis

if ($_POST['type']!='1' || ($_POST['type']=='1' && $_POST['prepayment']=='2'))
{
     do this and that 
}

I get a PHP error:

Fatal error : Call to undefined function () in .....

What's wrong?

use it as if (($_POST['type'] != '1') || ($_POST['type'] == '1' && $_POST['prepayment'] == '2')) { — Saty
– Saty, Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 6:03
There isn't any error with the code, check this. eval.in/590545 — Alok Patel
– Alok Patel, Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 6:06
Still Fatal Error. I use PHP 5.5.15 - maybe PHP wrong settings ? — Ben
– Ben, Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 6:43
Could you paste the full error message? Does the line number match the if block? — ojrask
– ojrask, Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 6:51
Fatal error : Call to undefined function () in path/file.php on line 274. The line number matches exactly the if block — Ben
– Ben, Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 7:18

deceze · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-17 06:53:29Z

1

Since the function name is given as "" (nothing), the only reasonable cause for this is a wrong whitespace character before (, e.g. an IDEOGRAPHIC SPACE U+3000, or something of that sort. PHP recognises that as not-a-space but some-Unicode-character, which is a valid function name. E.g. 漢字() would be a valid function call, so is 　() (that's a full-width space character).

Check your spaces and/or retype that line.

answered Jun 17, 2016 at 6:53

deceze♦

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4 Comments

Ben Over a year ago

I removed whitespace and its gone. To check it, I inserted the spaces again but it's still gone - weired. Maybe this is an error of the script interpreter / compiler. I'll watch this and come back later.

deceze Over a year ago

Again, this easily happens if you inadvertently insert some weird whitespace characters. Perhaps you're typing with an IME in a foreign language which may contain such characters, or you've copy and pasted from a weird source.

ojrask Over a year ago

Constantly happening to me, accidentally press some combination of Shift, Ctrl, and Space which results in a non-breaking space which renders as a space in editors.

Ben Over a year ago

@deceze - Well I use XCode as editor with UTF-8 - really weired. I accept youre answer but might come back to report upcoming errors

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