PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '?' in helpers.php 233
I had approximately the same problem with Laravel 5.5 on ubuntu, finally i've found a solution here to switch between the versions of php used by apache :
- sudo a2dismod php5
- sudo a2enmod php7.1
- sudo service apache2 restart
and it works
If I had to guess, I'd say you installed the PPA 7.1.8 as CLI only (php7-cli). You're getting your version info from that, but your libapache2-mod-php package is still 14.04 main which is 5.6. Check your phpinfo in your browser to confirm the version. You might also consider migrating to Ubuntu 16.04 to get PHP 7.0 in main.
If you have newly upgraded your php version you might be forget to restart your webserver service.
If you came across this error while using the command line its because you must be using php 7 to execute whatever it is you are trying to execute. What happened is that the code is trying to use an operator thats only available in php7+ and is causing a syntax error.
If you already have php 7+ on your computer try pointing the command line to the higher version of php you want to use.
export PATH=/usr/local/[php-7-folder]/bin/:$PATH
Here is the exact location that worked based off of my setup for reference:
export PATH=/usr/local/php5-7.1.4-20170506-100436/bin/:$PATH
The operator thats actually caused the break is the "null coalesce operator" you can read more about it here:
php7 New Operators