weird text at start of page

Monday 20 December 2010 1:12:58 am

Sometimes I see text like $arr_14 ) ) ); ?> or "/> " /> at the VERY beginning of the page. Clearing template cache fixes this immediately, but is there anyway to prevent things like this from happening or know what might be causing this?

Monday 20 December 2010 2:54:30 am

I remember this happening at some point and it turned out to be incorrectly closed ini files (opened with <? but not closed with ?> or with junk after the ?>). Although the $array_14 points to a failure in a template. I had a shell script template checker in contributions somewhere but I can't find it now... so I'll paste it here - it might be useful in tracking down stranded tags:

#!/bin/bash
tplfile=${@:$#} 
cmd=`basename $0`
#case {case {[/c][ca][as][se][e/]}
gettags ()
{
cat - <<EOF |grep -v "^#"
div <div </div>
span <span </span>
li <li[^n] </li>
ul <ul </ul>
ol <ol </ol>
tr <tr </tr>
td <td </td>
table <table </table>
if {if {/if} {else
case {case {/case}
switch {switch {/switch}
let {let {/let}
default {default {/default}
foreach {foreach {/foreach}
section {section[^-] {/section} {section-
append {append-block {/append-block}
cache {cache-block {/cache-block}
bracket-space {[[:space:]]  this_should_never_match_on_anything
EOF
}
matchtag ()
{
        matchtag=`echo $1|sed 's/\[.*\]$//'` #This is needed to stop the <li
        cat "$tplfile"|grep "$1"|                    #from matching on link with <li[^n]
        awk -v matchtag=$matchtag -v endtag=$endtag -v elsetag=${elsetag:-"this_is_a_long_dummy_string"} 'BEGIN{FS=endtag}{
                for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) {
                        if ( matchtag != elsetag && $i ~ elsetag ) {
                                continue
                        } else {
                                if ( $i ~ matchtag ) {total = total + 1}
                        }
                }
        } END {
        print total
        }'
}
checktags ()
{
else=0
dirtyflag=0
elsetag=""
gettags|while read label opentag closetag elsetag
do
        endtag=${closetag:$((${#closetag} - 1)):1}
        closetag=${closetag:0:$((${#closetag} - 1))}
        open=`matchtag $opentag|tail -1`
        close=`matchtag $closetag|tail -1`
        if [ -n "$elsetag" ]
        then
                else=`matchtag $elsetag|tail -1`
                if [ "${opt}" = "-v" ]
                then
                        echo $label $opentag ${open:-0} $closetag ${close:-0} ${else:+elsetag $else}
                fi
        else
                if [ "${opt}" = "-v" ]
                then
                        echo $label $opentag ${open:-0} $closetag ${close:-0}
                fi
        fi
        if [ "${open:-0}" -ne "${close:-0}" ]
        then 
                if [ "$1" = "verbose" ]
                then
                        echo -e "Uneven ${label} tags: ${label}-open: ${open:-0} ${label}-close: ${close:-0}\c"
                        if [ -n "$elsetag" -a ${else:-0} -ne 0 ]
                        then
                                echo -e " ${label}-else: ${else:-0}\c"
                        fi
                        echo
                else
                        dirtyflag=1
                        echo $dirtyflag
                fi
        fi
done
}
########
# MAIN #
########
if [ $# -lt 1 ]
then
        echo -e "Usage:\t $cmd <file|directory>"
        echo -e "\t\t<directory> is recursive"
        echo -e "\t\t-v (verbose) also displays clean files"
        exit
elif [ "$1" != "$tplfile" -a "$1" = "-v" ]
then
        opt="-v"
fi
if [ "$tplfile" = "." ]
then
        tplfile=$PWD
elif [ "$tplfile" = ".." ]
then
        tplfile=`dirname $PWD`
fi
if [ -d "$tplfile" ]
then
        echo "#### Starting from $tplfile ####"
        find $tplfile -name "*.tpl" -print|while read file
        do
                $0 ${opt} ${file}
        done
        exit
fi

dirtyflag=`checktags`
if [ -n "${dirtyflag}" ]
then
        echo "##### "$tplfile" #####"
        checktags verbose
elif [ "${opt}" = "-v" ]
then
        echo "##### "$tplfile" #####"
        echo "`basename $tplfile` appears clean"
fi

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