CakePHP cakeshell errors "A Notice: Uninitialized string offset: 0 in" - php

Question

I am trying to run my cake shell script but the output looks like the following:
-bash-3.2$ ../cake/console/cake audit
../cake/console/cake: line 30:/root/site/app: is a directory
Array
(
[0] => /root/site/cake/console/cake.php
[1] => -working
[2] =>
[3] => audit
)
Notice: Uninitialized string offset: 0 in /root/site/cake/console/cake.php on line 550
What am I doing wrong? Here are the contents of this file:
cake.php
function __parseParams($params) {
$count = count($params);
for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) {
if (isset($params[$i])) {
if ($params[$i]{0} === '-') {
$key = substr($params[$i], 1);
$this->params[$key] = true;
unset($params[$i]);
if (isset($params[++$i])) {
if ($params[$i]{0} !== '-') {//This is line 550
$this->params[$key] = str_replace('"', '', $params[$i]);
unset($params[$i]);
} else {
$i--;
$this->__parseParams($params);
}
}
} else {
$this->args[] = $params[$i];
unset($params[$i]);
}
}
}
}

Answer 1

Focus on the first error
Whenever debugging something that's broken, it's a good idea to focus on the first error and not the fallout from it. The first error message is this line:
line 30:/root/site/app: is a directory
It comes from the cake bash script, before calling php. That line in the most recent 1.3 version is blank, so it's not obvious what specific version of cake you are using, but it isn't the latest 1.3 release.
The consequence of the above error is that the following is the command called:
exec php -q "/root/site/cake/console/"cake.php -working "" "audit"
^^
The parameters passed to cake.php specify that the working directory is an empty string, something which is abnormal and later causes an undefined index error.
Upgrading cures all ailes
Most likely, this specific error can be solved by copying cake.php from the latest version of the same release cycle you are using.
Also consider simply upgrading CakePHP itself to the latest release (from the same major version in use) which will likely fix this specific problem, and others - especially relevant if there have been security releases, which recently there have been.