In all my life coding in PHP and reading error messages I have yet to come across this weird and frightening message

Parse error: syntax

error, unexpected ;, expecting T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM

At first glance I just noted the line number and took a look there. Seeing nothing unusual I went to read the error message.

(Yes we actually try to understand error messages because they really help in your debugging.)

It was then I got a shock. What in the world is a “T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM“??!! Heck I can’t even pronounce it.

My first thought is that my PHP complier screwed up but then I decided the Google will hold the answer.

So copying and pasting almost the whole of the error message into Google, it was discovered that T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM is actually Hebrew for “::”, the double colon token.

Further probing showed that

T - stands for Token
PAAMAYIM - means double
NEKUDOTAYIM - means dots, or colon

in Hebrew.

I first thought that the programmers a having some humour but it turns out PHP was written by Israelis. Probably started development in their native tongue, it’s more likely they just missed this in translation.

A quick look at http://www.php.net/manual/en/tokens.php shows that even though an alias T_DOUBLE_COLON has been assigned, this phrase is embedded in PHP history.

How amusing.