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PHP PHP Arrays and Control Structures PHP Conditionals Switch Statements

Posted by douglas gray
douglas gray
888 Points

Learning to understanding parsing and syntax errors. Please help.

Hello! My code is attached. I'm getting a syntax and/or parsing error. I only understanding vaguely what a parsing error is and I see nothing wrong with my syntax. I've indented properly, and included colons, semi colons and special characters where necessary (to the best of my knowledge). Please review if you can. Also, could anyone give me a hot tip regarding better understanding these errors? I know that seems silly but I want something comprehensive, consistent with the style of Treehouse, with a context. Thank you!

switch.php 
<?php
//Available roles: admin, editor, author, subscriber
if (!isset($role)) {
    $role = 'subscriber';
}

//change to switch statement
 switch ($role) {
     case ('admin')
       echo "As an admin, you can add, edit, or delete any post.";
     default:
       echo "You do not have access to this page. Please contact your administrator.";
}

1 Answer

Corey Cramer
Corey Cramer
9,453 Points
Corey Cramer
Corey Cramer
9,453 Points

Hello, you're actually missing a colon that's all. Each case ends in a colon followed by an indent of the code. The only other thing I would suggest is that you break your switch once you satisfy a condition.

switch ($role) {
    case ('admin'):
        echo "As an admin, you can add, edit, or delete any post.";
        break;
    default:
        echo "You do not have access to this page. Please contact your administrator.";
}

As far as understanding the errors that are shown when it says unexpected '[ACTION]' that is usually an indication that something else you did was not properly terminated so it ran over into the next line/thing. The best place to start when inspecting that kind of error is with the previous line.