phpMyAdmin 4.9.6 + PHP 7.0: PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '?', expecting variable (T_VARIABLE) in vendor/twig/twig/src/Node/Expression/GetAttrExpression.php

[fluff]

Describe the bug

phpMyAdmin 4.9.6 running on Debian 9's PHP 7.0.33-0+deb9u10 packages white-screens and logs the following in the apache error log:

PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected '?', expecting variable (T_VARIABLE) in ..../phpMyAdmin-4.9.6-all-languages/vendor/twig/twig/src/Node/Expression/GetAttrExpression.php on line 21

To Reproduce

1. Install phpMyAdmin 4.9.6 on Debian9/PHP7.0
2. Load the front page

Expected behavior

phpMyAdmin should load up and display a login screen, and no errors logged to the apache log

Server configuration

• Operating system: Debian 9.13
• Web server: Apache 2.4.25-3+deb9u9
• Database version: MariaDB 10.1.45-0+deb9u1
• PHP version: PHP 7.0.33-0+deb9u10
• phpMyAdmin version: 4.9.6

Client configuration

• Browser: Chrome 86.0.4240.75
• Operating system: macOS 10.15.7

Additional context

Reverting back to phpMyAdmin 4.9.5 works. Isn't the 4.9.x series supposed to be PHP 7.0 compatible?

[ibennetch]

Thank you for the report.

Yes, this is supposed to work with PHP 7.0; there seems to have been some incompatibility introduced with one of the library dependencies we use for handling page templates...we'll take a look.

[fluff]

Thanks. Looks like a too modern version of twig was included.

Perhaps the composer.json file in the 4.9.x branch should contain something like this to prevent installing dependencies that have a too high minimum php version?

"config": {
  "platform": {
    "php": "7.0.33" (or "5.5.38"?)
  }
}

[williamdes]

Without looking I would suggest that the PHP version building the 4.9 bundle was not using the lower supported php version.

[ibennetch]

I am uploading new phpMyAdmin releases 4.9.7 and 5.0.4 which should fix this.

Thank you for your report.

[4levels]

Issue is still there on 4.9.7 release.
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '?', expecting variable (T_VARIABLE) in /vendor/twig/twig/src/Node/Expression/TestExpression.php on line 19
I am using the github tag RELEASE_4_9_7, could that be related? Reason being phpmyadmin is installed via nix deployment using github tags.

[4levels]

I tried reverting to 4.9.6. 4.9.5 to no avail :-(

[ibennetch]

@4levels Could you please confirm which PHP version you're using? I tested with PHP 5.6 before the release. It could be related to running from Git, could you please let us know a little more about your deployment process? Are you running composer update or composer install as part of the build? Can you run tell us the output of composer info | grep twig?

[4levels]

Sure, glad to!

# php --version
PHP 7.0.32 (cli) (built: Sep 11 2018 06:27:06) ( ZTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2017 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.0.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2017 Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v7.0.32, Copyright (c) 1999-2017, by Zend Technologies
    with Xdebug v2.7.1, Copyright (c) 2002-2019, by Derick Rethans```

[4levels]

Composer calls:

composer update --no-interaction --no-progress --no-suggest --prefer-dist --no-dev
composer install --no-interaction --no-progress --no-suggest --prefer-dist --no-dev
composer dump-autoload -o

[4levels]

composer info | grep twig
twig/extensions             v1.5.4  Common additional features for Twig that do not directly belong in core
twig/twig                   v2.14.0 Twig, the flexible, fast, and secure template language for PHP

[4levels]

Seems a bit weird to me that different versions of twig are installed, or is this supposed to be?

[4levels]

A friend pointed out that it might be related to calling composer update during the installation. I just updated my build steps to not call composer update and all is well now! Sorry for the false positive here, my bad

[ibennetch]

That's strange to me (as someone who sort of understands Composer but is by no means an expert), composer update should upgrade packages to the latest version that meets the requirements and in the case of RELEASE_4_9_7 with PHP 7.0, that should be twig 1.34, not 2.14.

Seems a bit weird to me that different versions of twig are installed, or is this supposed to be?

The version numbers for the various Twig components aren't in sync or really related to each other, so this is not surprising. Good thought, though.

Anyway, I'm glad you sorted it out!