Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:50909
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: error (pb1.pair.com: domain nebm.ist.utl.pt from 193.136.128.22 cause and error)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; delsp=yes
To: internals@lists.php.net
References: <AANLkTinvtBW3mE_8dZH0tSbcA34-fCEQuBxqUfu1wvpD@mail.gmail.com>
 <AANLkTikswHCNrfp00GgnBbRs--pFxDei83Rawn+W0PE6@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 01:11:43 -0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Organization: =?utf-8?Q?N=C3=BAcleo_de_Eng=2E_Biom=C3=A9di?=
 =?utf-8?Q?ca_do_IST?=
Message-ID: <op.vndexpdmidpuyk@cataphract-old.dulce.lo.geleia.net>
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTikswHCNrfp00GgnBbRs--pFxDei83Rawn+W0PE6@mail.gmail.com>
User-Agent: Opera Mail/11.00 (Win32)
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] RE : Re: [PHP-DEV] [PATCH] Add option to disable POST
 data processing
From: glopes@nebm.ist.utl.pt ("Gustavo Lopes")

On Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:45:56 -0000, Tjerk Meesters  
<tjerk.meesters@gmail.com> wrote:

> Don't have much knowledge about the internal workings of the engine, but  
> I'm wondering if it's possible to apply "lazy loading" to the $_POST  
> variable, so that processing only happens if and when it's requested.
>
> That way you wouldn't need the ini setting.

In most cases, processing (=parsing) of the POST data already only occurs  
when $_POST is requested; however, previously the data was already  
entirely copied to two or three memory locations.

If you mean making it so that the data is only *read and processed* when  
$_POST is requested, I suppose that would be possible, but I think it  
would require significant code/architectural changes to PHP and to the  
sapis. It would also raise other problems, including backwards  
compatibility breaks, if we wanted the change to bring any benefit.

For instance, current scripts can, in POST requests, read any number of  
times from php://input or $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA (to simplify, let's say we  
even let go $HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA).  For this to be possible, you would have  
to have the data in memory because you're reading from php://input the  
first time, you can't know if it will be read a second time, so you either  
break BC or keep everything in memory just in case there's a second read  
-- and then you're where you started.

-- 
Gustavo Lopes