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Date: Mon, 15 May 2017 08:57:01 +0200
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Subject: BC break in master (7.2) - Distinguish between unmatched subpatterns
 and empty matches in preg_*()
From: nicolas.grekas@gmail.com (Nicolas Grekas)

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Hi,

in master, feature request https://bugs.php.net/61780 has been implemented
and merged into master thanks to https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/1303

But as noted in the PR and even in the UPGRADING file, this is a BC break:
  . preg_match() and other PCRE functions now distinguish between unmatched
    subpatterns and empty matches by reporting NULL and "" (empty string),
    respectively. Formerly, either was reported as empty string.

While trying to run Symfony's test suite against 7.2, we noticed that this
BC break is hitting several components badly. If Symfony is hit, there will
be many more userland code impacted for sure.

As written explicitly in the releasing policy of php-src, BC breaks must
not happen in minor versions. Therefore, I'm kindly but strongly asking for
this BC break to be reconsidered and removed.

Thanks for your consideration,
Nicolas

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