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Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:51:12 +0000
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] 5.4 regression: non-existent sub-sub keys now have
 values
From: lester@lsces.co.uk (Lester Caine)

Ferenc Kovacs wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Lester Caine <lester@lsces.co.uk
> <mailto:lester@lsces.co.uk>> wrote:
>
>     Ferenc Kovacs wrote:
>
>         some clarification:
>         in the test script, Daniel declared $arr as:
>         $arr = array('exists' => 'foo');
>         so when he tests
>         $arr['exists']['non_existent']
>         PHP will see that $arr['exists'] is a string, and it will convert the
>         'non_existent' index to int(0) and that will return the same
>         as $arr['exists'][0]: 'f'
>         If he would have defined $arr['exists'] as an array, then the code would
>         work as
>         he expected, empty would returned true for $arr['exists']['non_existent']
>
>
>     The bit I am missing here is the statement that $arr = array ... has NOT
>     created an array with an element ['exists']
>
> yes it did, but ['exists'] wasn't defined as an array, but as a string.

THAT was what was confusing things ... but I wonder what code was failing in 
PEAR? The code here was looking for an array element to check that the ARRAY had 
been populated, but the holding element was just a simple string rather than an 
empty array.

>     ... I suspect that this is perhaps where the code *I* am looking at is
>     breaking down ... how SHOULD you define the array so that it is an array? So
>     that $family = array ( 'fam1' => 'JONES' ); is the base for the JONES family
>     rather than simply a string. All of this USED to be simple, but it seems to
>     be getting so cryptic that this is what is causing the trouble :(

The legacy code methods may be wrong, but a lot of this code originates in PHP4 
days, so when things do break what is needed is a clean upgrade guide which may 
help to isolate the bugs when they appear?

> I think you just need a coffee.
No just a version of PHP where I'm not firefighting changes but getting back to 
actually producing new code :( I can either test 5.4 or work ... I don't have 
time for both ...

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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