Paamayim Nekudotayim

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Paamayim Nekudotayim (Hebrew: פעמיים נקודתיים‎, pronounced [paʔamajim nəkudotajim])^{[where's the stress?]} is a name for the scope resolution operator (::) in PHP. It means "twice colon" or "double colon" in Hebrew. It may be helpful to note that in some cases this error may occur when the $ symbol is not included in the use of a variable.

Nekudotayim (נקודתיים) means 'colon'; it comes from nekuda [nəkuda],^{[where's the stress?]} 'point' or 'dot', and the dual suffix ayim (יים-), hence 'two points'. Similarly, the word paamayim (פעמיים) is derived by attaching the dual suffix to paam [paʔam] ('one time' or 'once'), thus yielding 'twice'.

The name was introduced in the Israeli-developed^[1] Zend Engine 0.5 used in PHP 3. Although it has been confusing to many developers, it is still being used in PHP 5, as in this sample error message:

$ php -r '::'

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM in Command line code on line 1

This error can also occur where no scope resolution operator is present. For example, attempting to check whether a constant is empty() triggers this error:

$ php -r "define('foo', 'bar'); if (empty(foo)) echo 'empty';"

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ')', expecting T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM in Command line code on line 1

[edit] See also

• PHP
• Scope (programming)
• Name resolution, which includes a discussion of scope resolution
• Niqqud on the vowel points used in Hebrew writing

[edit] References