Help with syntax error

Hello,
I am trying to set up a canned script, and in trying to get it to work I’ve come across a syntax error I don’t really understand. I ran the following command via ssh on my webserver:

/usr/bin/php -c /home/path/to/mailPipe.php

and here is the response I get:

PHP:  syntax error, unexpected '(' in /home/path/to/mailPipe.php on line 4

here is the php code

;!/usr/bin/php -q
<?php

set_time_limit(600);
ini_set('max_execution_time',600);
require_once('mailReader.php');
$save_directory = __DIR__; 
$db_host = 'localhost';$db_un = '***';$db_pass = '***';$db_name = '***';$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=$db_host;dbname=$db_name;charset=utf8",$db_un,$db_pass);

$allowed_senders = Array('email1@email.com', 'email2@email.com', 'email3@email.com', 'email4@email.com', 'email5@email.com', 'email6@email.com', 'email7@email.com', 'email8@email.com', 'email9@email.com');
$mr = new mailReader($save_directory,$allowed_senders,$pdo);
$mr->save_msg_to_db = TRUE;
$mr->send_email = FALSE;
$mr->readEmail();?>

not sure what could be wrong with that, can someone help? Thank you!!

Is it pointing to a syntax error in the mailreader.php file that you include? Leaving out whitespace that conceivably might be line 4?

I don’t think you want to use -c … that refers to pointing to a config file (think php.ini), not your file.

If you want to look for syntax errors, use -l
http://www.php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.options.php

/usr/bin/php -l /home/path/to/mailPipe.php

If you want to execute it

/usr/bin/php /home/path/to/mailPipe.php

Thanks, I was instructed by my webhost’s techsupport to use -c but I agree I think they must have meant to use -l. Using -l both files checked out with no syntax errors. Not sure what is going on here. Thanks for your help!
Dan