Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ELSE in /public_html/system/expressionengine/libraries/Functions.php(680) : eval()‘d code on line 9

Typically it isn’t a problem with that actual file - it’s a core file, so there shouldn’t be.

You either must be using the EE tags incorrectly in your template, or you have a problem with the php you are using in a template.

There’s typically only one way to solve this when you are seriously stuck, and that’s to remove everything from your template and gradually re-add it to your template, a line at a time until you work out which is the offending tag.

I modified my Functions.php so I can figure out where things were going wrong. All you have to do is set $debug = true and you’ll get a file with the actual code that is being parsed written.

/**
  * eval() 
  *
  * Evaluates a string as PHP
  *
  * @access public
  * @param string
  * @return mixed
  */ 
 function evaluate($str)
 {
  $debug = false; 
  // return eval('?'.'>'.$str.'<?php ');  
  $x = eval('?'.'>'.$str.'<?php ');  
  if($x === false) {
   if($debug) {
    $timestamp = date("m-d-Y H:i:s");
    $msg = "Timestamp:".$timestamp."\n".$str;
    $fp = fopen("/var/tmp/Functions_Exception.txt", 'a');
    fwrite($fp, $msg . "\n");
    fclose($fp);
   }
  } else {
   return $x;
  }
 }

(BTW, this was in version 1.4.0, it may have changed in later versions but it looks the same in 2.5.2) I really wished they had a way to get the actual template name that is being evaluated.

Thanks, that didn’t work for me. If your code is coming back as a fatal error, you’ll never get the debug code. Here’s the quick workaround I used (then removed):

/**
         * eval()
         *
         * Evaluates a string as PHP
         *
         * @access      public
         * @param       string
         * @return      mixed
         */
        function evaluate($str)
        {
                if (empty($GLOBALS['evalcount'])){ $GLOBALS['evalcount'] = 1; }
                else {
                $GLOBALS['evalcount']++;
                }
                echo "<HR>";
                echo "<H1>". $GLOBALS['evalcount'] ."</h1>";
                echo "<textarea rows=30 cols=200>";
                        echo $str;
                echo "</textarea>";
                flush();
                ob_flush();
                return eval('?'.'>'.$str.'<?php ');
        }

That’ll print (in a text area) each chunk of html/php that gets streamed through evaluate(), and flush the buffer before eval()’ing so you can see it. Take the last <textarea> and run it as a php file to see line numbers and and fix the problem. Then, of course, revert your function evaluate() to the original!

M.