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Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 02:22:08 +0300 (EEST)
Reply-To: Jani Taskinen <sniper@iki.fi>
To: Colin Tucker <colin@encode.net.au>
cc: internals@lists.php.net
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Reference handling change and PHP 4.4.0
From: sniper@iki.fi (Jani Taskinen)


     You do understand the difference between 4.3.x and 4.4.x? :)
     (yes, this issue has been beaten to death already)

     --Jani


On Wed, 14 Sep 2005, Colin Tucker wrote:

>
> Hello all,
>
> I know this issue has most likely been discussed to death here so I apologise 
> in advance for starting a new thread about it.  I just need to get my head 
> around the reasoning for introducing this change to PHP4 (4.4 branch).  I can 
> understand making the change to PHP5, but can someone bring me up to speed as 
> to why it was done to PHP4?  As I'm sure you're aware, it breaks heaps and 
> heaps of existing code out there.
>
> We found this out the hard way yesterday when our server administrator 
> upgraded our production server to PHP 4.4.0 (even though the Debian package 
> description said it was a PHP 4.3.x release).  We ended up with hundreds of 
> errors and many, many vhosts stopped working correctly due to "variable 
> references should be returned by reference" problems, both in my code and in 
> third-party code, such as PHPBB instances.
>
> And now I read that this will not be "fixed" in future PHP4 releases due to 
> breaking backwards compatibility?  I just don't understand... a change that 
> breaks backwards compatibility in a large portion of the existing PHP4 code 
> base will not be fixed because it breaks backwards compatibility?  It's doing 
> my head in, please can someone explain?
>
> This means that either we have to (potentially) change thousands of lines of 
> code and upgrade many instances of third-party PHP-based sites just to use PHP 
> 4.4.0 and above, or miss out on using this and future PHP4 releases and any 
> security vulnerability fixes they may include. Why could the change not be 
> made optional by using a php.ini directive?
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Colin.
>
>