[laravel-5.5] PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '?' in helpers.php 233

When I create a new Laravel project, the browser displays an error 500. I found this in the log:

PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '?' in vendor/laravel/framework/src/Illuminate/Foundation/helpers.php on line 233

the code in 233 is:

return app('cache')->get($arguments[0], $arguments[1] ?? null);

But as i know, null coalescing operator( ?? ) is supported from PHP 7.0

My PHP Version:

PHP 7.1.8-2+ubuntu14.04.1+deb.sury.org+4 (cli) (built: Aug 4 2017 14:34:05) ( NTS ) Copyright (c) 1997-2017 The PHP Group Zend Engine v3.1.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2017 Zend Technologies with Zend OPcache v7.1.8-2+ubuntu14.04.1+deb.sury.org+4, Copyright (c) 1999-2017, by Zend Technologies

Laravel Version: 5.5.0

Who knows what happened?

If you have newly upgraded your php version you might be forget to restart your webserver service.

I had approximately the same problem with Laravel 5.5 on ubuntu, finally i've found a solution here to switch between the versions of php used by apache :

1. sudo a2dismod php5
2. sudo a2enmod php7.1
3. sudo service apache2 restart

and it works

If you came across this error while using the command line its because you must be using php 7 to execute whatever it is you are trying to execute. What happened is that the code is trying to use an operator thats only available in php7+ and is causing a syntax error.

If you already have php 7+ on your computer try pointing the command line to the higher version of php you want to use.

export PATH=/usr/local/[php-7-folder]/bin/:$PATH

Here is the exact location that worked based off of my setup for reference:

export PATH=/usr/local/php5-7.1.4-20170506-100436/bin/:$PATH

The operator thats actually caused the break is the "null coalesce operator" you can read more about it here:

php7 New Operators

I had the same error and the problem is that I had not correctly installed Composer.

I am using Windows and I installed Composer-Setup.exe from getcomposer.org and when you have more than one version of PHP installed you must select the version that you are running at this point of the installation

I had the same problem with the laravel initiation. The solution was as follows.

1st - I checked the version of my PHP. That it was 5.6 would soon give problem with the laravel.

2nd - I changed the version of my PHP to PHP 7.1.1. ATTENTION, in my case I changed my environment variable that was getting Xampp's PHP version 5.6 I changed to 7.1.1 for laragon.

3rd - I went to the terminal / console and navigated to my folder where my project was and typed the following command: php artisan serves. And it worked! In my case it started at the port: 8000 see example below.

C: \ laragon \ www \ first> php artisan serves Laravel development server started: http://127.0.0.1:8000

I hope I helped someone who has been through the same problem as me.