[PHP-DOC] FW: [PHP-DEV] PHP 4.0 Bug #7387 Updated: weird problems with unquoted array subscripts From: James Moore (jmoore <email protected>)
Date: 11/17/00

Ideas for a possible addition to the manual for those who missed it one
php-dev

James

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jmoore <email protected> [mailto:jmoore <email protected>]
> Sent: 17 November 2000 16:17
> To: php-dev <email protected>
> Subject: [PHP-DEV] PHP 4.0 Bug #7387 Updated: weird problems with
> unquoted array subscripts
>
>
> ID: 7387
> Updated by: jmoore
> Reported By: delme <email protected>
> Status: Assigned
> Bug Type: Documentation problem
> Assigned To: joey
> Comments:
>
> Maybe we should look at documenting how the engine corrects bad
> coding. We often get questions on #php about the engine
> correcting unquoted string constants and any other behaviour like
> this. I cant think of any others now but maybe a new chapter on
> debugging troublesome code or common errors etc is necessary in
> the manual. This might belong in the FAQ but I think a chapter in
> the docs wouldnt go amiss. Maybe another thing we should think
> about doing is including the FAQ in the manual as well as on
> php.net itself.
>
> Previous Comments:
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> [2000-10-24 04:44:00] joey <email protected>
> This is neither a bug in PHP, nor a doc bug...I will make
> the incompat entry more explicit as soon as I can get to the
> CVS, but you can see from the last comment what the problem
> is: you are using a predefined constant as a key in an assoc.
> array. This would be termed, at best, as "undefined".
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> [2000-10-22 19:45:09] lyric <email protected>
> It won't work properly with any reserved word, which brings me
> back to the point : you should always quote constant strings.
> The only reason that it works at all is the parser is fixing your
> mistakes for you. If you set your
>
> error_reporting = E_ALL
>
> in your php.ini (and restart php), for the code
>
> $a[word] = "foo";
>
> you'll see the warning
>
> Warning: Use of undefined constant word - assumed 'word' in
> /var/www/html/test2.php on line 3
>
> I'll leave this issue open for someone from the documentation
> team to catch up with later.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> [2000-10-22 15:10:31] stas <email protected>
> moving to doc's problem, since it's clearly not engine bug but doc issue.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> [2000-10-22 14:52:00] delme <email protected>
> i must ask, then - why has the bareword `null' suddenly picked up
> a special meaning to the scripting engine? this seems like a
> *bad* design move to me, since it means that this bareword
> suddenly behaves differently than before. it's also not
> consistent - *are* there other barewords that have special
> meanings in similar contexts?
>
> also, it's not mentioned at
http://www.php.net/version4/incompatibilities.php. this is a little
dangerous.

if we maybe introduced a null() *function* i could see it...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

[2000-10-22 10:57:47] lyric <email protected>
Two distinct issues:

a) The problem starts with the fact that >>null<<, in all it's forms, is a
magic word with a single unique value. Thus $a[null] is the same variable as
$a[Null], but NOT the same as $a["Null"]. The problem is that

  " $a[null] "

is being read as

  $a["null"]

which is probably the best way to handle this single ambigious case.
SOLUTION: don't use NULL as an array index without quoting it.

b) the difference is simply in the way a boolean is printed to the screen. A
true is now displayed as '1', a false is now '' (the empty string). I'm not
sure why that was changed. SOLUTION: echo ($cond)?1:0;

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The remainder of the comments for this report are too long. To view the
rest of the comments, please view the bug report online.

Full Bug description available at: http://bugs.php.net/?id=7387 

--
PHP Development Mailing List <http://www.php.net/>
To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-dev-unsubscribe <email protected>
For additional commands, e-mail: php-dev-help <email protected>
To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin <email protected>