Syntax errors caused by unclosed {, [, ( mention specific location
Aside from a few very specific syntax errors for which detailed exceptions are
thrown, generally PHP just emits the default error messages generated by bison on syntax
error. These messages are very uninformative; they just say "Unexpected ... at line ...".
This is most problematic with constructs which can span an arbitrary number of lines, such
as blocks of code delimited by { }, 'if' conditions delimited by ( ), and so on. If a closing
delimiter is missed, the block will run for the entire remainder of the source file (which
could be thousands of lines), and then at the end, a parse error will be thrown with the
dreaded words: "Unexpected end of file".
Therefore, track the positions of opening and closing delimiters and ensure that they match
up correctly. If any mismatch or missing delimiter is detected, immediately throw a parse
error which points the user to the offending line. This is best done in the *lexer* and not
in the parser.
Thanks to Nikita Popov and George Peter Banyard for suggesting improvements.
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