Syntax error, unexpected ‘class’ (T_CLASS) on line 1 after upgrade to php 5.6.4

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After upgrading to php 5.6.4 my widgets file causes:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected 'class' (T_CLASS) in /home/path/fss-widgets.php on line 1

I’m mystified – several hours research has yielded nothing. The problem doesn’t appear to be quoting, escaping, or anything else you would expect in this situation and the code looks ok to me.

<?php

/*
Plugin Name: FSS Vacancy Widget
Plugin URI: http://www.url.com/
Description: Shows recent vacancies
Author: Name
Version: 1.0
Author URI: http://www.url.com/
*/

class FSSVacancyWidget extends WP_Widget
{
  function FSSVacancyWidget()
  {
    $widget_ops = array('classname' => 'FSSVacancyWidget', 'description' => 'Displays Recent FSS Jobs on the homepage and all other pages' );
    $this->WP_Widget('FSSVacancyWidget', 'FSS Vacancies', $widget_ops);
  }

  function form($instance)
  {
    $instance = wp_parse_args( (array) $instance, array( 'title' => '' ) );
    $title = $instance['title'];
    $fss_numposts = $instance['fss_numposts'];
    $fss_vacurl = $instance['fss_vacurl'];
    $fss_morevac = $instance['fss_morevac'];
?>
    <p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>">Title: <input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('title'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo attribute_escape($title); ?>" /></label></p>
    <p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('fss_numposts'); ?>">Number of Posts (Default is 10): <input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('fss_numposts'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('fss_numposts'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo attribute_escape($fss_numposts); ?>" /></label></p>
    <p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('fss_vacurl'); ?>">Vacancy URL: <input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('fss_vacurl'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('fss_vacurl'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo attribute_escape($fss_vacurl); ?>" /></label></p>    
    <p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('fss_morevac'); ?>">More Vacancies Title: <input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('fss_morevac'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('fss_morevac'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo attribute_escape($fss_morevac); ?>" /></label></p>   

<?php
  }

  function update($new_instance, $old_instance)
  {
    $instance = $old_instance;
    $instance['title'] = $new_instance['title'];
    $instance['fss_numposts'] = $new_instance['fss_numposts'];
    $instance['fss_vacurl'] = $new_instance['fss_vacurl'];
    $instance['fss_morevac'] = $new_instance['fss_morevac'];
    return $instance;
  }

  function widget($args, $instance)
  {
    extract($args, EXTR_SKIP);

    /* User-selected settings. */
   $fss_numposts = $instance['fss_numposts'];
   $fss_vacurl = $instance['fss_vacurl'];
   $fss_morevac = $instance['fss_morevac'];

    echo $before_widget;
    $title = empty($instance['title']) ? ' ' : apply_filters('widget_title', $instance['title']);

    if (!empty($title))
      echo $before_title . $title . $after_title;;

    echo "<ul class="items">";

    query_posts( array( 'showposts' => $fss_numposts ) );
    if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
    echo "<li><a href="".get_permalink().""><span class="job-title">".get_the_title()."</span><span class="job-date">".get_the_date('d m Y')."</span></a></li>";

    endwhile; endif; wp_reset_query();

    echo "</ul>";
    echo"<a href="".$fss_vacurl."" class="view">".$fss_morevac."</a>";

    echo $after_widget;
  }

}
add_action( 'widgets_init', create_function('', 'return register_widget("FSSVacancyWidget");') );

2 s
2

An error about something on line 1 that is actually on a later position means that PHP doesn’t recognize your line endings.

There are three ways to encode a line ending, and PHP understands only two of them:

  1. LF, or \n, Line Feed, U+000A
  2. CR, or \r, Carriage Return, U+000D
  3. CRLF, or \r\n, the combination of the first and the second

LF is the default on systems like UNIX, Linux, and Mac OS X (since 2001).
CRLF is the default in Windows, inherited from CP/M. Just LF works on Windows too nowadays, there is no need to use CRLF anymore.
CR was the default in Classic Mac OS until 2001.

PHP doesn’t understand 2., CR only, which is understandable, because no one is using that anymore. Well, almost no one. There are still some editors out there that not only allow that obsolete line ending encoding, they don’t even warn their users when they are using it.

Set your editor to use LF only, and you are safe. Unfortunately, the WordPress Coding Standards are silent about this.

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