[Php-java-bridge-users] PLEASE name globally visible variables very unique!

[<php...@li...>]

My application always failed mysteriously the very moment I included the
Java-bridge (i.e. as soon as I added "
require_once('http://localhost:8080/JavaBridge/java/Java.inc');" to my
code, I didn't actually *use* anything from it, yet, just including it was
enough to break my application.

After some quite substantial investigation I had to learn, that the reason
was, that the Java.inc file uses a globally visible variable "$version"
(which in line 4) is set to the current php-version and then compared to
'5.1.2' to give a warning if this is executed on a lower php-version.

Apparently some other code that I am using also checks for such a variable.
It expects to find 1.0.0 but now found 5.2.3 (the PHP version I am using)
and then behaved completely differently, i.e. eventually did not work at
all, since it combined that variable into a filename and then did not find
a file required and failed.

To verify this, I made myself a copy of Java.inc where I renamed this
variable and now everything works as expected.

So, dear PHP/JavaBridge developers:
if you use (and then leave around) such globally visible variables, then
PLEASE make their names VERY unique. The name "version" is obviously too
likely to appear in other's code as well and then can have very strange
side-effects!

I even suggest to NOT use any variable here, but to write this snippet as
follows:
      ...
  if ((version_compare("5.1.2", phpversion(), ">"))) {
      $msg = '<br><strong>PHP '.phpversion().' too old.</strong><br>\nFor
PHP versions < 5.1.4 install the java.so or php_java.dll from the
php-java-bridge-legacy download.<br>\nOr set the path to the PHP
executable, see php_exec in the WEB-INF/web.xml';
      die($msg);
  }
     ...

In the (hopefully rare) case where this test fails, it doesn't really hurt
to call the method twice (since the code is terminated anyway) and in the
good case this doesn't leave any traces.

Regards,
Michael