php outputs sourcecode instead of running nginx

Question

I have this showing up on my site. the lang function is showing on the web, but not runned as it should run on the site. The server is running nginx

Q: Why is it doing that, and how can it be prevented?

content of file:

    <?

function lang($line) {

    $ci = & get_instance();
    $languageVariable = explode(" ", $line);
    $outcome = '';
        foreach($languageVariable as $langLine) {
        $outcome .= $ci->lang->line($langLine);

        }
        return $outcome;


}

function langW($string, $var1 = FALSE, $var2 = FALSE, $var3 = FALSE)
{
    return sprintf(lang($string), ($var1 ? $var1 : ''), ($var2 ? $var2 : ''));
}



function langV($line, $var)
{
    $ci = & get_instance();
    return sprintf($ci->lang->line($line), $var);
}

Answer 1

Make sure you have:

short_open_tag=On

in php.ini, then restart your nginx server

http://php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.short-open-tag

If you can't edit php.ini, then you can either replace all your <? to <?php (not the best..) or add the following to the .htaccess file in your document root:

php_value short_open_tag 1

Remember that your hosting could have disabled this option, so it's not 100% guaranteed that the .htaccess way works.