“Parse Error: syntax error, unexpected $end” is one of those less-than-transparent error messages. What exactly does it mean?
Usually this error is trying to tell you that a curly brace was opened but never closed: an opening if (condition) { with no closing }; or, as another example, an foreach($var as $subVar): with no endforeach;.
When I first began building out hellorobot.org, modifying the Grid Focus theme, I wanted to be able to feature some of an ongoing list of links – say only the newest 5. Seemed easy.
WordPress has a built-in template function for displaying links, wp_list_bookmarks(), with a decent list of options that can be passed as a URL query string. One of those options is ‘orderby,’ which natch specifies the order in which the links should be displayed. I wanted it to be ordered by date so, as described in the WP documentation, I entered ‘orderby=updated&order=desc.’
It didn’t work.
The root of the problem is whether or not an element “has layout.” Now, “layout” is a completely made-up, IE-specific attribute not attended to in any manner by the other browsers. It’s bunk. But it provides the solution to the broken borders issue.
To enforce proper border behavior in IE, the floated elements need to “have layout.” If validation doesn’t matter, the quickest solution may be to add “zoom:1″ to the element. If validation does matter, you can give an element layout by setting “position:absolute” or giving the “height” or “width” attributes something other than auto.
Hellorobot.org is the development hub, blog, & portfolio site of Brian Leary. Who is Brian Leary?