#2869 sqspell_ereg error in php 7.2

[Aiden Woodruff]

Hi, I'm having trouble using squirrelspell. With a correctly spelled email, I get the "no errors found page". When I type "donde esta la biblioteca" I get a 500 error. This is the error in my php error log:
```
[05-Jan-2024 10:36:37 America/Chicago] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function ereg() in /usr/share/squirrelmail/plugins/squirrelspell/modules/check_me.mod:214
Stack trace:

0 /usr/share/squirrelmail/plugins/squirrelspell/sqspell_interface.php(58): require_once()

1 {main}

thrown in /usr/share/squirrelmail/plugins/squirrelspell/modules/check_me.mod on line 214
```

I am using PHP 7.2.34 and SquirrelMail 1.4.23 [SVN]-1.el7.20190710

[Barry Nelson]

I am using PHP 8.2.1 and I am getting the same error 500

[Dave Wreski]

We found the same obsolete ereg() dictionary-lookup calls in our SquirrelMail 1.4.23-svn installation while investigating SquirrelSpell failures on Fedora 44 with PHP 8.5.12.

Our observed production failure was initially:

Call to undefined function fgetss() in plugins/squirrelspell/modules/check_me.mod

Reviewing that code also identified the two ereg() lookup calls associated with this report and an ereg_replace() call in the personal-dictionary save path.

We have deployed a local patch that:

• Replaces fgetss() with stream reading and tag stripping across the complete output.
• Replaces both dictionary lookups with literal, newline-delimited word matching.
• Replaces ereg_replace() with str_replace() for the literal dictionary separator.
• Initializes the spellcheck input array and handles messages beginning with the signature separator.

The literal dictionary lookup also avoids interpreting punctuation in dictionary words as regular-expression syntax.

PHP syntax checks and isolated regression tests passed on PHP 8.5.12. The changes are installed, but we are still completing browser-level verification of Spell Check and Add to dictionary.

Dave Wreski
Guardian Digital