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Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:29:27 -0800
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To: Stan Vassilev <sv_forums@fmethod.com>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Dots and spaces in variable names are converted to
 underscores.
From: rasmus@lerdorf.com (Rasmus Lerdorf)

Stan Vassilev wrote:
>> Dots and spaces in variable names are converted to underscores. For
>> example <input name="a.b" /> becomes $_POST["a_b"].
>>
>> Any reason why? and any way to modify this behaviour to preserve dots
>> and spaces? (dots specifically)
>
> I'm also using dots for this reason, so I feel your pain. What I ended 
> up doing is converting dot syntax to PHP array syntax as I compile my 
> templates.
> So when I type this:  <input ... name="a.b.c.d"> what I get actually 
> compiled and sent to the browser is this:  <intput ... name="a[b][c][d]">
>
> The reason for this quirk is register_globals. The symbols not 
> suitable for symbol names, such as dots, are replaced with 
> underscores, so that you can access your POST variable "foo.bar" as 
> $foo_bar in global space. Of course it never made sense the conversion 
> is applied to the superglobals like $_COOKIE/GET/POST, but it was, and 
> now there are claims that it'll break backwards compatibility if changed.
>
> I hope PHP6 will remove this processing as register_globals will be 
> completely removed at that point.
Well, that conversion still needs to happen somewhere, since plenty of 
apps call extract() on those superglobals, but with register_globals 
entirely gone in PHP 6, I suppose that conversion can be moved to the 
extract() call.

-Rasmus