Magento 2 getting error: ( ! ) Parse error: syntax error, unexpected 'T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM' (T_STRING), expecting ')'

Question

While installing custom module at server i'm getting this error at frontend. My php version at server is 5.6. But same module at my localhost with php 7.0 version is working fine. I'm not able to understand this why this error showing. The error line code is below:

array(
    $this->_productVisibility::VISIBILITY_BOTH,
    $this->_productVisibility::VISIBILITY_IN_CATALOG
);

Any single help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The code in your module is not PHP 5.6 compatible. Consider the following program.

#File: test.php
<?php
class A
{
    public function foo(){
        $foo = array( 
            $this->_productVisibility::VISIBILITY_BOTH, 
            $this->_productVisibility::VISIBILITY_IN_CATALOG
        );
    }
}

If you run this through PHP's standard lint scanner (in PHP 5.6)

$ php -l test.php

You'll end up with the following error

Parse error: parse error, expecting `')'' in test.php on line 6 Errors parsing test.php

The problem is trying to access a class constant on an instance variable.

$this->_productVisibility::VISIBILITY_BOTH

This is invalid syntax in PHP 5.6. Whomever wrote this code did not write it with PH 5.6 support in mind.

The right thing to do here? Use a server with PHP 7. PHP 5.6 goes out of active support at the end of this year (2016), and while it has 2 years left os security patch support, Magento runs much better with a PHP 7 enviornment.

If that's not possible, you'll need to fork the extension, and rewrite all the code in a PHP 5.6 compatible way, and reapply your changes whenever the extension updates.

Answer 2

Hello Guys i got solution of my own question. just replace below code

array( $this->_productVisibility::VISIBILITY_BOTH, $this->_productVisibility::VISIBILITY_IN_CATALOG );

to

$this->_productVisibility->getVisibleInSiteIds());

Now this code is compatible with PHP 5.6 as well as 7

Thanks for @Alan Storm for guiding me