Why did the error "Parse error: syntax error, unexpected end of file" appear when changing from php5 to php7?

Question

PHP

They asked to make very small design changes in the ancient php legacy: 5.6.31, the site was not only written 15 years ago, but also without a hint of MVC - inserts - <?php ... ?> more html. Downloaded the latest XAMPP with php7 and got this error. To understand where there is something that is not closed for a long time and is inexpedient, the question is actually why did it appear? After all, on php5.6 the site works without errors. Googled the difference between version 5 and 7, but did not find the answer. What is the trouble and how can you quickly fix it without digging into the code?

Answer 1

Most likely due to disabled short_tags

Answer 2

this error appears when some language construction is not closed (brackets {} or something else)
look for an error - there is no other option.
"why it didn't appear in the 5th version" - because formally these are different languages ​​and they don't have backward compatibility, and in particular because the error handling scheme has been changed.