Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:50912
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: error (pb1.pair.com: domain ubuntu.com from 65.98.207.160 cause and error)
To: Gustavo Lopes <glopes@nebm.ist.utl.pt>
Cc: internals@lists.php.net
In-Reply-To: <op.vndexpdmidpuyk@cataphract-old.dulce.lo.geleia.net>
References: <AANLkTinvtBW3mE_8dZH0tSbcA34-fCEQuBxqUfu1wvpD@mail.gmail.com>
	 <AANLkTikswHCNrfp00GgnBbRs--pFxDei83Rawn+W0PE6@mail.gmail.com>
	 <op.vndexpdmidpuyk@cataphract-old.dulce.lo.geleia.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 07:10:30 -0800
Message-ID: <1291821030.7243.230.camel@clint-MacBookPro>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] RE : Re: [PHP-DEV] [PATCH] Add option to disable
 POST data processing
From: clint@ubuntu.com (Clint Byrum)

On Wed, 2010-12-08 at 01:11 +0000, Gustavo Lopes wrote:
> 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.
> 

This example would be solved if during the lazy load you change the
php://input stream to point at the memory location that you read it
into.