Javascript inside php not working properly

Question

<div class="interactionLinksDiv">
<a href="javascript:toggleReplyBox('.$fullname.','.$current_id.','.$current_id.','.$id.','.$thisRandNum.')">REPLY</a>
</div>

I have call the javascript function toggleReplyBox with five parameters. This code is written inside the php tags. But this code is not executing properly and the parameters are not being passed properly. If I call the function toggleReplyBox here with no parameters it works fine but thats not what I want.

<div class="interactionLinksDiv">
<a href="javascript:toggleReplyBox('<?php echo $fullname; ?>','<?php echo $current_id; ?>','<?php echo $current_id ; ?>','<?php echo $id; ?>','<?php echo $thisRandNum; ?>')">REPLY</a>
</div>

When I copied this code to the html part of my php file It works fine and the parameters are passed and the function executes properly. But I want to know why the function is not able to work inside of the php tags when everything is the same.

function toggleReplyBox(sendername,senderid,recName,recID,replyWipit) {
$("#recipientShow").text(recName);
document.replyForm.pm_sender_name.value = sendername;
document.replyForm.pmWipit.value = replyWipit;
document.replyForm.pm_sender_id.value = senderid;
document.replyForm.pm_rec_name.value = recName;
document.replyForm.pm_rec_id.value = recID;
document.replyForm.replyBtn.value = "Send";
if ($('#replyBox').is(":hidden")) {
      $('#replyBox').fadeIn(1000);
} else {
      $('#replyBox').hide();
}

}

Inside the php tags I changed the code :

print <<<HTML
<div class="interactionLinksDiv">
<a href="javascript:toggleReplyBox('$fullname','$current_id','$current_id','$id','$thisRandNum')">REPLY</a>
</div>
HTML;

And it is still showing the error Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in C:\xampp\htdocs\Fluid Solution\fluid-solution-website-template\interact\profile1.php on line 130

Line 130 is the <a href... line.

I suggest you to click on the "code sample" button after having selected the text. You may find this useful too. — Denys Séguret
– Denys Séguret, Commented Sep 23, 2012 at 19:28
You need to show your full code, as is you code won't work.Is this part of a php file? Is it a php string? If so you are mixing ' and " which will cause you problems. What is the output html / javscript you get when the php page executes? — Toby Allen
– Toby Allen, Commented Sep 23, 2012 at 19:29

LSerni · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-23 20:22:05Z

4

The first version of your code is neither PHP (javascript/HTML tags are "naked") nor Javascript: the "." string concatenation operator won't work in Javascript, nor will the $variable expansion.

You can get it to work in PHP like this:

<?php
    $fullname = "Test";
    $current_id = 15;
    $id = 9;
    $thisRandNum = 42;
    // All lines beyond this point, and...
    print <<<HTML
<div class="interactionLinksDiv">
<a href="javascript:toggleReplyBox('$fullname','$current_id',
'$current_id','$id','$thisRandNum')">REPLY</a>
</div>
HTML;
    // ...up to here, start at the first column (i.e. they are not indented).
?>

Note that within the here-document (area between <<<HTML and HTML), you can't use the string concatenation operator "." (or any other).

Or you can do as you did in the second version of your code, replacing only the variables with <?php echo $variablename; ?> and leaving all the rest as HTML.

As a simpler example let's consider an alert() box with message sent from PHP. This means that:

1) the script is executed server side; anything between <?php ?> tags is executed, and its output replaces the tags themselves.

After this phase, we no longer have PHP but a mix of HTML and Javascript, which can be executed by the client it's sent to. So we want to have a HTML like

<script type="text/javascript">
    alert('Hello, world');
</script>

To do this we can generate all the HTML in PHP:

echo '<script type="text/javascript">';
echo "alert('$message');";  // or also:  echo 'alert("' . $message . '");';
echo '</script>';

Or we can do it with a here-document, where operators do not work, but $variables do:

echo <<<HEREDOCUMENT
<script type="text/javascript">
    alert('$message');
</script>
HEREDOCUMENT;

Or we can run it all in HTML, and only rely on PHP to generate the lone variable:

<script type="text/javascript">
    alert('<?php echo $message; ?>');
</script>

But always you need to keep separated what it's being done in PHP, what in Javascript, and what is in the HTML markup.

edited Sep 23, 2012 at 20:22

answered Sep 23, 2012 at 19:29

LSerni

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3 Comments

Rahul Rawat Over a year ago

this is the error Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in C:\xampp\htdocs\Fluid Solution\fluid-solution-website-template\interact\profile1.php on line 129

LSerni Over a year ago

You have to be careful: the word after the <<< sign must be followed by nothing, not even a space; and its second occurrence must be preceded by nothing (the line must start with it), and followed by a semicolon ';'.

LSerni Over a year ago

I have edited my answer - the first snipped of code I have just tested, and found to be working. Try it as a standalone PHP file, first, to make sure. Then copy the same modifications in your code. I can't reproduce the "T_VARIABLE" error myself, though; if it was an "$end not found", maybe, but an unexpected T_VARIABLE...?

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