[phplib-users] PHP 5.2 and PHPlib

[Lindsay H. <fmo...@fm...>]

It looks as if PHP4 is history.  Distributions such as Ubuntu Linux and
Gentoo Linux are discontinuing support for it, primarily for security
reasons, and pushing migration to PHP5.  PHP6 is in the works.  I've
been using PHPlib since PHP3 was the standard version.

I've been going over the PHPlib code base with a view to migrating all
the websites I host to PHP5, and while the PHPlib code seems to work
well enough, I note that a lot of code in PHPlib dates back to PHP3, and
there are numerous shortcuts and other improvements in the code base and
functionality in PHP5 that would clean up the code and very possibly
improve it.  Has anyone looked at the following issues?

*  The code should assume that register_globals is off.  It's a major
security risk, disabled by default in recent distributions of PHP, and
will be dropped altogether in PHP6.  Dropping tests and conditionals in
PHPLib based on the value of register_globals and making
register_globals = 0 a necessary precondition for running PHPlib (it
should be a necessary precondition for running PHP!) would simplify the
PHPlib code.  The same caveats apply to session.use_trans_sid.

*  $_SERVER, $_POST, $_COOKIE superglobals could be substituted for
$HTTP_SERVER_VARS, $HTTP_POST_VARS, etc. and the global declarations
eliminated from the code.  This would clean things up a bit.

*  The $classname class property is a holdover from PHP3, where it was
required, I believe, in order to serialize classes.  My understanding is
that it's no longer needed.  Does it serve any function at all?  Could
it be dropped altogether?

*  Some very nice coding efficiencies are available in PHP5 by using the
__autoload() function.  Reorganizing PHPlib's file naming system would
provide at least a hook to implement this.

*  Is it still necessary to have the option of storing session data in a
database rather than using PHP's native session management?

*  Other points, questions .....

I've been doing a bit of work on session4.inc to bring it in line with
PHP5, plus I'm using a PEAR MDB2 based database class which I wrote
which is a workalike for PHPlib's DB class, less a few of the very
seldom used methods and properties.  It's been 100% OK as a drop-in
replacement for PHPlib's DB class wherever I've used it.

I may totally out to lunch with this, but thought I'd write this list
and see if anyone else is interested.

-- 
Lindsay Haisley       | "In an open world,    |     PGP public key
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