PHP Parse Error: syntax error, unexpected $end

In PHP 5, the following error may appears as an error entry in Apache error log or simply displays on PHP web page, even if calling to php scripts with php_info() works perfectly and successfully returns information on PHP configurations:

Parse Error: syntax error, unexpected $end in ….. scripts.php on line …

The error may caused by a missing curly bracket in PHP script coding. Beside, it may also caused by error in PHP coding in class definition, as in PHP, a class definition cannot be broke up and distributed into multiple files, or into multiple PHP blocks, unless the break is within a method declaration.

But more commonly, the error is often caused by the use of Short Open tags in PHP, <? instead of full tag, <?php in PHP scripts. Both tags can be used, although for good practice, it’s recommended to use only the full tags <?php when programming in PHP scripts, especially in applications or libraries that are meant for redistribution, or deployment on PHP servers which are not under your control, because short tags may not be supported on the target server.

To use short open tags, it must be enabled in PHP.INI. Search for short_open_tag in PHP.INI, and change the value to On. The line should look line:

short_open_tag = On