Syntax working on localhost, not working on godaddy server

Question

Can someone tell me why this code would work on my local server but not with godaddy? I get the following error on godaddy...

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '[' in /home/content/20/10592020/html/foodport/application/controllers/register.php on line 41

Here is the get_userId function from my user_model .

public function get_userId(){
        $results = $this->obtain_user_info('users', array('username'=>$this->username), true);

        if(count($results) > 0)
        {
            return $results;
        }else
        {
            return array("user_id" => GUEST_ID);
        }
    }

Here is the obtain_user_info function:

private function obtain_user_info($table, $params, $assoc = false){
        $query = $this->db->get_where($table, $params);

        if(!$assoc){
            $results = $query->result();
        }else
        {
            $results = $query->row_array();
        }

        return $results;
    }

Here is the code in my register controller specifically line 41.

$user_id = $user->get_userId()['user_id'];

Answer 1

Check the version of PHP - my guess is that your local server is running a later version than GoDaddy's server. You might have to do something like this:

$temp_id = $user->get_userId();
$user_id = $temp_id['user_id'];

Answer 2

Specifically, you need PHP > 5.4.0 to access a function return array directly like:

$user_id = $user->get_userId()['user_id'];

Prior to 5.4.0 you would need to assign the return of the function to a variable and access it:

$result  = $user->get_userId();
$user_id = $result['user_id'];

But I would ask, why return an array if you are only returning one value?

Answer 3

$user_id = $user->get_userId()['user_id'];

http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php#example-88

This is Array dereferencing which is available in php 5.4 However usually godaddy got php 5.3.3

Depending on your hosting plan you can change it.