Illegal string offset Warning PHP

Question

I get a strange PHP error after updating my php version to 5.4.0-3.

I have this array:

Array
(
    [host] => 127.0.0.1
    [port] => 11211
)

When I try to access it like this I get strange warnings

 print $memcachedConfig['host'];
 print $memcachedConfig['port'];


 Warning: Illegal string offset 'host' in ....
 Warning: Illegal string offset 'port' in ...

I really don't want to just edit my php.ini and re-set the error level.

Answer 1

The error Illegal string offset 'whatever' in... generally means: you're trying to use a string as a full array.

That is actually possible since strings are able to be treated as arrays of single characters in php. So you're thinking the $var is an array with a key, but it's just a string with standard numeric keys, for example:

$fruit_counts = array('apples'=>2, 'oranges'=>5, 'pears'=>0);
echo $fruit_counts['oranges']; // echoes 5
$fruit_counts = "an unexpected string assignment";
echo $fruit_counts['oranges']; // causes illegal string offset error

You can see this in action here: http://ideone.com/fMhmkR

For those who come to this question trying to translate the vagueness of the error into something to do about it, as I was.