php - syntax error, unexpected '(', expecting ')'

Question

I was developing a site using Laravel 4. I had this piece of code in one of my models:

class MyModel extends Eloquent {
    protected $var = array(
        "label" => Lang::get("messages.label"),
        "code" => "myCode",
    );
    ...
}

But I gave this syntax error on the line where I used Lang::get:

syntax error, unexpected '(', expecting ')'

Then I changed my code into this:

class MyModel extends Eloquent {
    protected $var;

    public function __construct() {
        $this->var = array(
            "label" => Lang::get("messages.label"),
            "code" => "myCode",
        );
    }
}

And the error went gone! I think the error is very confusing and unhelpful. Why does php show this error message?

possible duplicate of Getting an error trying to initialize this public class variable using dirname() outside a method — Shankar Narayana Damodaran

Sverri M. Olsen Sverri M. Olsen · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-27T05:27:43

It is because you use Lang::get() when defining a class property, which is not allowed. Calling stuff like static methods can only be done at runtime (when the code is being executed).

When you define classes their properties can only be non-variable (or "constant") values (such as integers, strings or arrays that themselves only contain non-variable values).

Runtime code should be put into the constructor.

php - syntax error, unexpected '(', expecting ')'

2 Answers