{site_url} global variable not outputting in php header redirect

Question

Trying to create the following redirect template for some structure pages, however the url is outputting like this http://example.com/{site_url}#section. Any idea why {site_url} variable isn't working? And/or any idea how to resolve issue. Thanks in advance.

{exp:channel:entries channel="pages"}
    <?php
        header( "Location: {site_url}#{homepage_section}" );
        exit;
    ?>
{/exp:channel:entries}

Answer 1

You have PHP set to input on this template. That means that that something like:

<?php
    $test = "{site_url}";
?>

Causes the template parsing engine to eval the raw PHP code before replacing {site_url} with the actual site URL. You need to set PHP to output for this template, which means that EE template tags get parsed FIRST, then it evals the PHP code, meaning the above will look like this by the time the raw PHP gets executed:

<?php
    $test = "http://www.domain.com";
?>

Soooo yeah. FYI, if you have PHP on that template in other places, switching from input to output could definitely break things.

Edit

Wait.. so one EE tag is getting parsed, but the other isn't?