Displaying Template From MYSQl Table Using PHP eval() - Extra Line Break?

Each article that I create has its own unique URL. In each page is the corresponding code, which pulls the template (which is a mix of PHP/HTML/CSS) for the page from a MYSQL table. For some reason, it adds a line break at the top of the page, pushing everything down. Attached is a diagram of what I mean - for the real life example, please PM me. The code that is stored in MySQL is not the problem - it is the method in which I process it, eval().

How can I get rid of this line break?

Thanks

<?php  $article_id = '390';
								  ?><?php
	require_once($_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"] . "/includes/db.php");
	$sql = "SELECT Above_Content, Below_Content FROM templates WHERE ID = '1'";
	$query = mysql_query($sql);
	if ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) {
		echo eval("?>".$row['Above_Content']);
$sql = "SELECT article_title, article_intro, article_content, author_id, creation_date, last_modified_date FROM articles WHERE article_id = '390'";
				$query = mysql_query($sql);
				if ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) { ?>  
   		 		<p><?php echo $row['article_content']; ?></p>
				<?php
				}
						$sql = "SELECT Above_Content, Below_Content FROM templates WHERE ID = '1'";
		$query = mysql_query($sql);
		if ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) {
			echo eval("?>".$row['Below_Content']);
		}
	}
?>

Code (markup):

 

Nothing stands out in your code that would be the obvious cause of this.

Have you tried putting stops in at each output to get a better idea of what is going on? You dont need anything magical, just some form of indicator every time you output something (E.G ->output1<-, ->output2<-)

That aside, Why on earth are you using eval like that? :|

 

I discovered that it was simply an extra line in the HTML, not a problem with the PHP eval.

What do you suggest I use instead? This was the only way I could think of for templating my articles. I couldn't find any other ideas , and this seems to be working fine. Could you explain further why I shouldn't be using eval() here? I'm not questioning you, just looking for more answers =)