Anthony Ferrara wrote:
I'm specifically asking in relation to helping users migrate from PHP5.2 ... trying to expand the documentation of making that process easier. Pointing at a single manual page is a good example of why we need a more consistent support for all those users who are not as computer literate as we would like. That function may be a useful element of solving the problem, but it does not answer the specific question asked?Register_Globals has been seen (and touted) as bad practice since the 4.2. It was disabled by default as of Feb-5-2002, and in 4.2.0. This is a problem that the vast majority of users solved years ago. If you were still using them in 5.2 a decade later, you've got other problems.
There is still a lot of code which was crudely ported from PHP4 to PHP5 when PHP4 was end of lifed in 2008. This code still runs fine on 5.2 even if is archaic and a lot of legacy sites still rely on it. *I* am still using 199x code as it's still doing it's job, and since it's on private networks, the hacking risks don't really apply, but I'm asking simply to get some help to document processes to allow other users to upgrade.
The documentation exists. The blog posts exist. But they are old, because this is an old problem. I don't think internals should worry themselves with it. Especially since 5.2 has been EOL for a while now. If you brought this up when 5.3 was being planned, perhaps. But at this point, it's either a general list issue, or MAYBE a docs list issue, but not an internals list issue...
Perhaps because it IS such an old issue, that is why it's not coming up in searches? All I get is how to switch register_globals back on again. Nothing on ways to rewrite the code so that it will work with PHP5.4 at all ( and the problems getting some of these changes working with .htaccess hacks Rasmus ) which is probably because it's not actually a 5.2 to 5.3/4 migration problem? To be honest I can't even see it mentioned in the PHP4 to 5 guide.
IF PHP5.2 is to be put to bed, it needs a concerted effort to get rid of the reasons that ISP's are not upgrading, and this is one since they know when they do switch many of their 'naive' customer's sites will simply stop working? 'Not our problem' is all very well, but if a section of the 60% of users still running on PHP5.2 are simply knocked off the internet, then it's not very good press? This may be a non-issue, but it would at least be useful to confirm that is the case, and that ISP don't need to worry about it?
In the meantime some links to this old material would be helpful, if only to get access to them on the migration guides. Because I'm actively looking, hopefully the problem will not arise, but you can guarantee something will pop up that has been overlooked? There are a lot of subtle little changes which don't on their own give trouble, but a logjam has been created simply because older code does still work as long as certain conditions are met, and ensuring that a controlled release is achieved needs help from people who actually have the answers.
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