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Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 23:16:51 -0800
To: Sara Golemon <pollita@php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] fgets()/fgetss() BC break in HEAD
From: zeev@zend.com (Zeev Suraski)

At 13:04 15/11/2006, Sara Golemon wrote:
>ceo@l-i-e.com wrote:
>>On Tue, November 14, 2006 2:59 pm, Sara Golemon wrote:
>>>keeping.  I'll lay money that NOONE is relying on this, and I
>>>challenge
>>>any of you to prove me wrong on that count.
>>Errrr.
>>You may want to re-think that bet...
>>Surely somebody out there has:
>><?php
>>   $field_X = fgets($file, 10); //get the next 9 bytes
>>   $field_Y = fgets($file, 4); //get the next 3 bytes
>>?>
>Sorry, I meant to say "Noone with an IQ higher than twelve is 
>relying on this."

Sara,

My IQ is higher than 12, and I don't see how defensive coding could 
have defended against this BC break.  This code is missing error 
checking, but that could be quite reasonable (e.g. if you check ahead 
of time that the file is big enough to match the format you're 
expecting - so it's not perfect, but it's quite reasonable).  But 
even if it did have error checking, it would look something like this:

$field_X = fgets($file, 10);
if (strlen($field_X) != 9) {
         barf();
}

So, after the BC break, it'd barf.  There's really no way to protect 
against this BC break, and it's pretty clear this behavior is being 
relied upon.

>>Or change the docs and the variable name to something other than
>>maxchars is a perfect solution. :-)
>Yes, and that's what I said both in this thread and on IRC before 
>the thread started.

That's fine by me, but I think it's a different issue.  The BC break 
should be reverted irregardless...

Zeev