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To: smalyshev@gmail.com, michael.vostrikov@gmail.com
Cc: internals@lists.php.net, rowan.collins@gmail.com
Message-ID: <20160630195252.970321A806C6@dd1730.kasserver.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 21:52:52 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] New escaped output operator
From: mails@thomasbley.de ("Thomas Bley")

I would prefer to have ENT_HTML5 as the default flag included, since normally all new html code is html5.
Maybe split voting between <?~ and <?html= which gives a later option for <?json=, <?csv and other contexts.

Regards
Thomas

Михаил Востриков wrote on 30.06.2016 21:35:

> I've tried to gather all arguments for and against.
> 
> To be clear. I suggest new operator like '<?~ $value ?>' which is
> equivalent of <?= htmlspecialchars($value, ENT_QUOTES | ENT_SUBSTITUTE) ?>.
> It is only for HTML context. Flag combination is taken from most popular
> frameworks - Symfony, Zend, Yii, and Twig. Of course, exact form of
> operator and default flags are the details of implementation.
> 
> 
> 
> - You can write short function in userland.
> 
> The problem is not that we have no function. The problem is that the same
> action is always repeated, and if we don't repeat it then it leads to
> security problems. More than 90% of output data - is data from DB and must
> be HTML-encoded.
> 
> There is no such problem with other contexts. If we don't call json_encode
> when passing an array or object into javascript, this only breaks the
> script, and it will be noticeable, there won't be security problems.
> 
> With new operator we can write or <?~ ?>, or <?= ?>, they are mutually
> exclusive, and we need specially write one or another, but with helper
> function we have the same beginning <?= and then can write helper function
> or not.
> 
> Also there is a problem with function autoloading.
> 
> 
> 
> - It is no place for such operators in the language.
> It is no place for a such operators in C++, or C#, or Java. But in the most
> popular language for web-programming it is very place for such operator.
> 
> 
> 
> - There are many other contexts
> 
> HTML is external context, but others are internal task-dependent contexts.
> HTML can be used together with other contexts.
> HTML context is the main context in every PHP file, and we write <?php at
> the beginning to switch it.
> 
> Actually, on web page we have 3 external contexts - HTML, &gt;script> tag,
> <style> tag.
> PHP+CSS usually is not used. PHP+JS is not just escaping. It is encoding in
> special notation.
> Escaping can be applied only to strings, but encoding can be applied to any
> type of variables.
> 
> Only urlencode is really escaping (and it also can be used together with
> other contexts). But urlencode is an internal context. If we construct an
> URL, e.g. for filters, we should encode every part.
> 
> $filterUrl = '/my_route/?state=active';
> if ($postData['contains_text']) $filterUrl .=
> '&contains_text='.urlencode($postData['contains_text']);
> 
> When we write data-attirbute, additional context is task-dependent, but
> HTML context is always present.
> 
> <div class="some-class"
>    data-url="<?=
> htmlspecialchars('/my_route/?state=active&category_id=123') ?>"
>    data-settings="<?= htmlspecialchars(json_encode($settings) ?>"
>></div>
> 
> 
> 
> - Other people will ask about operator for another context
> And you can say: We already added an operator for the main web context,
> because it is the most frequently used context. If you have a lot of work
> with other contexts, please use template engine.
> 
> 
> 
> - You want to add new operator just for your needs
> It's not only my needs for one project. I meet this problem in many
> projects without template engine. The results of the poll, which I wrote
> about in my previous message, show that it has a place not only for me.
> Some feature requests on http://bugs.php.net with the same question were
> created in 2002.
> 
> 
> 
> - Some people can use various flags, or use third and fourth parameters of
> htmlspecialchars().
> 
> How many such projects of total number of projects?
> Default flags can be set to be enough safe. Third parameter can be chaged
> via ini_set. Fourth parameter is not required for many cases. Except maybe
> when some people encode the data before saving it into database.
> Also, new operator is not a replacement for htmlspecialchars, so it could
> still be used.
> 
> It just is looked not very good - we use special set of parameters, so you
> cannot add operator which we could not use.
> 
> This problem with flags can be solved by adding default value for them with
> PHP_INI_USER mode, and getter and setter for it. But I'm not sure you think
> this is a good idea.
> 
> 
> 
> - Exact flags / Default flags
> 
> In popular frameworks there are the following flags:
> 
> Symfony — ENT_QUOTES | ENT_SUBSTITUTE
> Yii — ENT_QUOTES | ENT_SUBSTITUTE
> Zend — ENT_QUOTES | ENT_SUBSTITUTE
> Twig — ENT_QUOTES | ENT_SUBSTITUTE
> 
> https://github.com/symfony/symfony/blob/f29d46f29b91ea5c30699cf6bdb8e65545d1dd26/src/Symfony/Component/Templating/PhpEngine.php#L421
> https://github.com/yiisoft/yii2/blob/c370c17e93f364a843ed7c31e1e1f7fc8caef0a3/framework/helpers/BaseHtml.php#L104
> https://github.com/zendframework/zend-escaper/blob/1a855b5f7074607b1260d85c5526a59b1ab36593/src/Escaper.php#L117
> https://github.com/twigphp/Twig/blob/f0a4fa678465491947554f6687c5fca5e482f8ec/lib/Twig/Extension/Core.php#L1039
> 
> 
> 
> - Tilde sign
> There is a good argument about tilde sign. It is absent in keyboard layouts
> for some european languages. But it is the details of implementation.
> I think it should be special sign which is typed with Shift and is located
> rather far from "=" sign. Possible variants are "<?! ?>", "<?@ ?>", "<?^
> ?>". First variant looks more suitable.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't see any arguments, why other operators can be implemented but this
> operator cannot.
> 
> So, please tell me, what do you think about RFC?
> 
> 
> 
> 2016-06-29 21:39 GMT+05:00 Михаил Востриков
> <michael.vostrikov@gmail.com>:
> 
>> Hello. I've created an article on russian technical site habrahabr.ru.
>> https://habrahabr.ru/post/304162/
>>
>> There is a poll about introducing of such operator. About 60% from those
>> people who have projects without template engine are "for" this operator.
>> And even a half of those who don't also think that such operator can be
>> useful.
>>
>> I think you can use Google Translate to read it, common sense and code
>> examples should be understandable.
>>
>> https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=en&tl=ru&js=y&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fhabrahabr.ru%2Fpost%2F304162%2F&edit-text=&act=url
>>
>> Current results:
>>
>>
>> How often do you work with the projects with template rendering on PHP
>> where template engines are not used?
>> 35% (163)  Always
>> 22% (104)  Quite often
>> 18% (86)   Quite rare
>> 25% (117)  Almost never
>>
>> Voted 470 people. Abstained 116 people.
>>
>>
>> How do you think, such an operator would be useful?
>> 56% (264)  Yes
>> 44% (207)  No
>>
>> Voted 471 people. Abstained 121 people.
>>
>>
>> I don't use PHP teplate rendering ...
>> 51% (147)  and I think that such an operator is not needed
>> 49% (139)  but I think that such an operator will come in handy
>>
>> Voted 286 people. Abstained 247 people.
>>
>>
>> Screenshot in Russian:
>>
>> https://habrastorage.org/files/675/9ac/883/6759ac8834044ef0b5a09163c791f376.png
>>
>>
>> 60% are "for" this operator, projects of others 40% will not be affected.
>> I think this is a good reason to create an RFC and discuss it on more
>> global level.
>>
>>
>