[Phpwiki-talk] superglobals policy

[Reini U. <ru...@x-...>]

Joby Walker schrieb:
> Reini Urban wrote:
>>> I had in mind the comment in the php manual which says:
>>> $_SERVER
>>>
>>> "Variables  set by the web server or otherwise directly related to the
>>> execution  environment  of  the  current  script. Analogous to the old
>>> $HTTP_SERVER_VARS array (which is still available, but deprecated)."
>>>
>>> [see
>>> http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/language.variables.predefined.php#language.variables.superglobals 
>>> ]
>>
>> up to 4.2.2 they are still there. guess for 4.3 also (BTW: 4.3-rc2 is 
>> out), but for the upcoming 5.0 they might go away.
>> no problem, they can easily be created from the superglobals.
> 
> Do we want to make a policy on this?  $HTTP_SERVER_VARS is deprecated, 
> and thus in the future may be dropped.  On the other hand old (unsecure) 
> PHP installations will not support $_SERVER.  We really should use one 
> or the other not both.
> 
> Personally, I support using the $_SERVER, $_GET, etc family of 
> superglobals despite some possible breakage of old PHP installations, 
> because it is the preferred way, eventually we will probably have to 
> migrate to it anyway, and it is more elegant.

I prefer the other way round.
$GLOBALS['HTTP_SERVER_VARS'] will always work with simple workarounds in 
prepend.php.
$_SERVER is a mess to maintain, because nobody will declare it global.

> How many installations are on PHP < 4.1.0?  If this breakage is an issue 
> we can if PHP version is < 4.1.0 set $_SERVER = $HTTP_SERVER_VARS, 
> $_COOKIE = $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS, etc.
> 
> Or is the consensus to wait to convert until it is necesary?

Keep our style and add:

if (empty($HTTP_ENV_VARS)) {
   $HTTP_SERVER_VARS = &$_SERVER;
   $HTTP_GET_VARS    = &$_GET;
   $HTTP_POST_VARS   = &$_POST;
   $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS = &$_COOKIE;
   $HTTP_SESSION_VARS = &$_SESSION;
   $HTTP_ENV_VARS    = &$_ENV;
   // $_FILES not needed globally for now, only once in Request.
   // We should also find some way to support the CGI version by
   // using ENV instead of SERVER automatically.
}

when they become depricated.
I see a bigger problem with other apps which already converted to the 
new superglobals on "old" php 4.0.6 systems. They are still very common 
on ISP sites. I work for a large one.
-- 
Reini Urban  http://inode.at/