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Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:06:00 -0700
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Subject: cleaning up the functions - any volunteers?
From: stas@zend.com (Stanislav Malyshev)

Hi!

While we nearing the release of 5.3 (hopefully?), there are many 
functions in the PHP code which still use old parameter parsing API 
(zend_get_parameters_ex) instead of the new one (zend_parse_parameters).

I have cleaned up Zend engine functions, converting them to the new API, 
but there are about 1000 instances throughout PHP code (especially 
ext/standard) which still use the old way. This way is less correct, 
inconsistent with the new code, gives worse error messages, more prone 
to various bugs, etc. All new extensions and functions use the new way, 
and the only reason for keeping the old way in the code seems to be that 
nobody cleaned it up. Somebody has to bring the old ones into sync, and 
I don't think I personally will have time to do it in near timeframe. So 
if anybody could step up to that - by doing at least part of the work - 
that'd be great. The work is pretty simple, taking something like:

zval **data;

if (ZEND_NUM_ARGS() != 1 || zend_get_parameters_ex(1, &data) == FAILURE) {
	WRONG_PARAM_COUNT;
}
convert_to_string_ex(data);

and move it into:

char *str;
int str_len;

if (zend_parse_parameters(ZEND_NUM_ARGS() TSRMLS_CC, "s", &str, 
&str_len) == FAILURE) {
	return;
}

and of course convert use of data zval into use of str.

This needs to be done carefully as not to break things on some more 
tricky functions which may get arguments of multiple types, etc. Also, 
some tests which check error messages may need to be fixed since new API 
gives more detailed messages.
zend_parse_parameters documented here:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/internals2.ze1.zendapi.php
though some of the newer parameters aren't (C, h, f, Z) so one may need 
to look at the code at zend_API.c.

P.S. if some genius would invent a script to automate that - it'd be 
awesome, but I don't have very high hopes on that. :)
-- 
Stanislav Malyshev, Zend Software Architect
stas@zend.com   http://www.zend.com/
(408)253-8829   MSN: stas@zend.com