This issue might simply be with the older copy of Org that you're running. Tested it today with a recent git pull and get the results below. As pmr suggested, you might have better luck asking on the mailing list ( [email protected] ) since there might be someone there who would know what caused this issue and what might have been changed to resolve it in later versions.
The features and examples discussed in the manual are based on the current release version (7.8.03 in this case) so they will not always be compatible with older versions. Does the info-node in your version indicate that it should work?
These 2 commands will show you the associated info-nodes for that section of the Org Manual
; The node itself
(Info-goto-node "(org) var")
; Parent node, in case the first node isn't present
(Info-goto-node "(org) Working With Source Code")
Test Results
* Test variable passing
Headlines are created to split the code blocks apart. When trying to eval on export I'm getting a syntax read error which was reported here: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2012-01/msg00993.html
** Ex 1
#+name: example-one
#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :exports results
(setq foo "bar")
#+END_SRC
** Ex 2
#+name: example-two
#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :exports results :var x=example-one
(setq foo (concat x x))
#+END_SRC
\vspace*{1cm}
Headlines are created to split the code blocks apart. When trying to eval on export I'm getting a syntax read error which was reported here: \href{http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2012-01/msg00993.html}{http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2012-01/msg00993.html}
\section{Ex 1}
\label{sec-1}
\begin{verbatim}
bar
\end{verbatim}
\section{Ex 2}
\label{sec-2}
\begin{verbatim}
barbar
\end{verbatim}
