Pick a random recipe (say, m4) and replace the do_compile() task with something obvious:

do_compile() {
    foo
}

Then bitbake-getvar it:

$ bitbake-getvar  --recipe m4 --value do_compile
    foo

That's expected.  Now add one character of whitespace before the closing braces:

do_compile() {
    foo
 }

$ bitbake-getvar  --recipe m4 --value do_compile
    # Export function set
    autotools_do_compile

The entire assignment is lost, and no parse errors were shown.