Unexpected bracket '[' - PHP [duplicate]

Question

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• PHP Array Syntax Parse Error Left Square Bracket “[” [closed] 2 answers

I'm writing a small repository for my little app team's Java code, and I have this error all over my code.

$base = explode(".", $class)[0];

The problem occurs only with this one line of code, every time. As far as I know, the above is correct PHP syntax, so what's going on?

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '[' in .../mitc/code/index.php on line 27

If you'd like to see the error, it's at http://chancehenrik.x10.mx/mitc/code/ and elsewhere on my site.

Answer 1

That's called array dereferencing and only works in PHP 5.4+. You're probably running PHP 5.3.x wherever you are getting that error.

See results based on different PHP versions

Answer 2

$exploded = explode(".", $class);
$base = $exploded[0];

Answer 3

To work on older versions of PHP (<5.4), you should do:

list($base) = explode(".", $class);

That is:

list($a, $b, $c) = array(1, 2, 3);

Now $a=1, $b=2, and $c=3.