[pmwiki-users] preg_replace (RFC)

Krait, Philippe Philippe.Krait at thalesgroup.com.au
Thu Dec 4 15:44:02 CST 2014


Hi Hans,

Thanks for your e-mail, which shows a perfect understanding of the situation, at least from my perspective. Also, since my last e-mail I spent a painful evening trying to find the source of the errors. There are good news and bad news...

One good piece of news is that I finally understood what needed to be done. I must say that, despite the details on the troubleshooting page, it is still a bit obscure, as there are quite a few very technical terms about the complex specificities of PHP that I don't understand. But still, I managed to fix a number of my recipes and, because I've been using the same template all over the place, Is should be able to fix the others as well as soon as I've got more time to do it.

The other good piece of news is that not only are some recipes already fixed, but I could also fix the simplest of the remaining ones applying the same principles that I applied above. I have attached the ones that I've fixed, just in case it's any help, but I am not sure about the best way to do this in a proper manner (what comments to include, how to put it back on the site in the proper manner, etc.)

The bad news is that the fix only works for simple use of the Markup() function. Some other recipes use it in a more complex fashion, or use preg_replace /e in creative ways, and I am afraid to break everything if I start tinkering with them.

There are two that I use and been unable to fix:
* Attachtable: this is a very useful recipe that I use all the time, so if a fix could be provided, I would be very grateful
* WikiSh: I use this one much more infrequently, but it's a big beast...

That being said, thanks for the support so far. My only other suggestion is exactly the same as Hans, it would make things much easier if there could be an error message identifying the markup causing the warning (and even better if the recipe could be identified that way as well). Would it be possible to scan the markup arguments for the presence of the nefarious /e ?

Anyway, thanks again, and long live PmWiki.

Philippe







-----Original Message-----
From: Hans Bracker [mailto:design at softflow.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, 4 December 2014 7:55 PM
To: Krait, Philippe
Cc: PmWiki Users
Subject: Re: [pmwiki-users] preg_replace (RFC)


Thursday, December 4, 2014, 12:37:26 AM, Philippe wrote:

>> I vote for option 3.
>> It is easy to understand and troubleshoot the problem.

> I'm really sorry, but it is not "easy to understand and troubleshoot 
> the problem". I have been using PmWiki for many years, but I'm not a 
> PHP Guru, and if it was that easy, it would have been fixed for all 
> recipes in a wink. Please don't expect every "simple"
> user of PmWiki to have an in-depth knowledge of PHP and PmWiki itself. 
> PmWiki is very user friendly in particular because it does not expect those.

I  think  you are right. It should not be expected for a site admin to fix  the  problems introduced by the update to PHP 5.5, which was most likely not done by her/him anyway. To be able to identify which recipe scripts or skins are generating these error messages would be nice.
Partly PHP does this and points to the script and code line involved.
An  admin  should  hopefully  be  able  to  see by this what recipe is involved, and check if there is an updated PHP 5.5 compatible version available.  Otherwise contact the recipe author or mention the problem here on  the user list, where someone else may be able to help to fix the  recipe.  I  have  been  relying on such error feedback from users about scripts I authored or co-authored.

But  there  are  many PHP error messages pointing to pmwiki.php, which are  not  caused  by  pmwiki code directly, but by use of the Markup() function  in  recipes  and  skins using the /e modifier in the regular expression. I think Petko did a good job adding a PmWiki error message in  such cases, which identifies the offending regular expression. But how  can  a  site  admin  work out in which recipe or skin script this regular  expression  pattern  is?  Because  that is not clear from the error message. A Markup() call with /e modifier could be anywhere, and an  admin would not know, unless s/he has a good idea about the scripts involved  and the regular expressions. One could make a text search on all  cookbook  and  skin  scripts for the offending regular expression pattern,  I  guess.  So  this is not an easy way to identify offending code  and scripts. Still Petko provided a handle and I am grateful for that!

Could  PmWiki  be more specific to identify in which function call and script offending regular expressions reside? I don't see how.

So  my  vote  is  for option 3 (do nothing, although Petko has already done  a  lot to help flag the problems ). But in the end we might need to  think about issuing warnings in the cookbook about the scripts and skins  which are not PHP 5.5 compatible. Maybe they can all b searched for  regular  expressions  with  /e modifiers? But that does not sound
easy   either.   And  sometimes  RE  patterns  with  /e  modifier were
created,  which  do  not  appear  inside  a  call  to  preg_replace or preg_match  etc.  Finding all these is difficult. Fixing them may prove difficult as well.


Best regards,
 Hans                         
mailto:design at softflow.co.uk
www.softflow.co.uk


This message contains OPEN information that is not sensitive and can be freely accessed by people both inside and outside of the Thales Group

This email was classified by Krait, Philippe  on Friday, 5 December 2014 8:44:01 AM


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