Parse error on explode

Question

I am getting a parse error for this and have no idea why

<?php
class api{
    //$api_Key;
    public function getURL($url){
        return file_get_contents($url);
    }
    public function postURL($url){
        $data = array();                                                                    
        $data_string = json_encode($data);   
        $ch = curl_init( $url );
        curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
        curl_setopt( $ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data_string);
        $response = curl_exec( $ch );
        print curl_error($ch);
        echo curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
        curl_close($ch);
        return $response;
    }
} 
class geo extends api{
    public function getLocation(){
        return $this->getJSON($this->postURL("https://www.googleapis.com/geolocation/v1/geolocate?key="));
    }
}
class vote extends api {
    private $key = "";
    //private $cordinates = $_COOKIE["cord"];
    private $cookie = explode(',',$_COOKIE['cord']);
    function getElections(){
        return $this->getJSON($this->postURL("https://www.googleapis.com/civicinfo/v2/elections?fields=elections&key=$key"));
    }
    function getLocationInfo(){
        $lat = $cookie[0];
        $long = $cookie[1];
        return $this->getJSON($this->postURL("https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?latlng=".$lat",".$long."&key=$key"));
    }
    function getDivision(){

    }
}

?>

This is the line the error is on

private $cookie = explode(',',$_COOKIE['cord']);

This is the error

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '(', expecting ',' or ';' in G:\wamp\www\voting\php\vote.php on line 30

I have looked at the documentation and around this site and the syntax look right but still cant get past this error

<?php
    include("/php/vote.php");
    $vote = new vote;
    $vote->getLocationInfo();
    //echo $_COOKIE["cord"];
    ?>

Answer 1

Inside a class you can't declare properties with functions.

You can use __construct() for this:

class vote extends api {
    private $key = "";
    //private $cordinates = $_COOKIE["cord"];
    private $cookie = array();

    function __construct(){
        $this->cookie = explode(',',$_COOKIE['cord']);
    }

    (...)

}

Please note:

I write above example based on your own example, in which the parent class has not __construct(). If the real parent class has a __construct() method, you have to modify the code in this way:

function __construct( $arg1, $arg2, ... ){
    parent::__construct( $arg1, $arg2, ... );
    $this->cookie = explode(',',$_COOKIE['cord']);
}

$arg1 etc... are the arguments of the parent class __construct():