Bizzare PHP behavior when moving from local (100% working) to hosted..some code working, some not

Question

I've been building a website in PHP using a local install of MAMP on a MacBook Pro. Yesterday I finally managed to finish it with everything working so I decided to buy some webspace and host the files using exactly the same setup as the local install on MAMP (PHP 5.3, MySQL).

When I moved the files over and tested the site I get a really strange error. Most of the code is working, however, there are parts of the code that are broken, but in a very unusual way. I'll try my best to explain..

Note: This image probably shows off the error very well. I've blocked out some of the private content.

Image of the error

The first bit of code is this:

if ($currentpage > $totalpages) {
   // set current page to last page
   $currentpage = $totalpages;
} // end if
// if current page is less than first page...
if ($currentpage < 1) {
   // set current page to first page
   $currentpage = 1;
} // end if

// the offset of the list, based on current page 
$offset = ($currentpage - 1) * $rowsperpage;

$sql = "SELECT * FROM message,thumbsup_items WHERE message.id = thumbsup_items.name AND message.date BETWEEN DATE_SUB(NOW(), INTERVAL 7 DAY) AND NOW() ORDER BY votes_down DESC LIMIT $offset, $rowsperpage";
$result = mysql_query($sql, $conn) or trigger_error("SQL", E_USER_ERROR);
$dest = "http://twitter-badges.s3.amazonaws.com/t_mini-b.png";
$dest2 = "images/fb-small.png";
$url="http://dfwm.ws";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) 

{

    ?>

Which is 100% working on the local install, however on the hosted website it cuts off at:

$totalpages) {
   // set current page to last page
   $currentpage = $totalpages;
} // end if
// if current page is less than first page...
if ($currentpage < 1) {
   // set current page to first page
   $currentpage = 1;
} // end if

// the offset of the list, based on current page 
$offset = ($currentpage - 1) * $rowsperpage;

$sql = "SELECT * FROM message,thumbsup_items WHERE message.id = thumbsup_items.name AND message.date BETWEEN DATE_SUB(NOW(), INTERVAL 7 DAY) AND NOW() ORDER BY votes_down DESC LIMIT $offset, $rowsperpage";
$result = mysql_query($sql, $conn) or trigger_error("SQL", E_USER_ERROR);
$dest = "http://twitter-badges.s3.amazonaws.com/t_mini-b.png";
$dest2 = "images/fb-small.png";
$url="http://dfwm.ws";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) 

{

    ?>

Meaning that the error must be to do with the < operator?. I'm unsure.

The next error is below:

<?
/******  build the pagination links ******/
// if not on page 1, don't show back links
if ($currentpage > 1) {
   // get previous page num
   $prevpage = $currentpage - 1;
   // show < link to go back to 1 page
   ?>
   <div id = "previous">
   <?
   echo " <a href='?currentpage=$prevpage'>«Previous</a> ";?>
   </div>
   <?

} // end if

// range of num links to show
$range = 2;
?>
<div id="pagination">
<?
// loop to show links to range of pages around current page
for ($x = ($currentpage - $range); $x < (($currentpage + $range)  + 1); $x++) {
   // if it's a valid page number...
   if (($x > 0) && ($x <= $totalpages)) {
      // if we're on current page...
      if ($x == $currentpage) {
         // 'highlight' it but don't make a link
         echo "$x";
      // if not current page...
      } else {
         // make it a link
         echo " <a href='?currentpage=$x'>$x</a> ";
      } // end else
   } // end if 
} // end for
// if not on last page, show forward and last page links        
if ($currentpage != $totalpages) {
   // get next page
   $nextpage = $currentpage + 1;
   ?>
   </div>
   <?
    // echo forward link for next page 
    ?><div id ="next"><?
   echo " <a href='?currentpage=$nextpage'>Next »</a> ";?>

Which cuts off at:

1) {

I've come to the conclusion that if it was an error to do with the operators, as it has happened on both times, surely it would just not show anything, instead of coming out of the PHP tag and just displaying it as HTML? (the image shows this at the start of the question).

Would really appreciate some help as I've been racking my brain over it for hours.

Thanks

Answer 1

You're using short tags (<? instead of the full <?php opening declaration) which are advised against for exactly this reason: incompatibility with some servers.

Re-write any instances of <? to <?php and make sure you use <?php in the future.

Answer 2

<? is the short open tag, which only works on PHP installs with the setting to enable them. I suggest you use the full <?php.