From: marwan at marvonline dot org
Operating system: Any
PHP version: Irrelevant
PHP Bug Type: Feature/Change Request
Bug description: Allowing characters other than [] to define arrays in POST or GET
variables
Description:
------------
PHP registers HTML variables that look like arrays as array variables,
which is pretty convenient for packaging form variables.
I'm building a form generator that utilizes this feature a lot. It uses it
something like this:
for ($i=0; $i<count($data['ID']); $i++)
{
echo "<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"data[ID][$i]\"
value=\"{$data['ID'][$i]}\"> "
."<input type=\"text\" name=\"data[Name][$i]\"
value=\"{$data['Name'][$i]\"><br>\n";
}
The (slightly) annoying thing about this is that urlencoding the variable
names replaces the '[' and ']' with three letter codes. If the arrays are
large (as they typically are) this bloats the POST request quite a lot.
If PHP would consider the '.' as an array operator when registering GET
and POST variables, it would improve matters. The '.' is urlencoded as a
'.' with no charcter inflation. Further, it would only require one
operator instead of two ([ and ]).
The code would then look like:
for ($i=0; $i<count($data['ID']); $i++)
{
echo "<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"data.ID.$i\"
value=\"{$data['ID'][$i]}\"> "
."<input type=\"text\" name=\"data.Name.$i\"
value=\"{$data['Name'][$i]\"><br>\n";
}
Since PHP forbids using the '.' in variable names anyway, this shouldn't
affect much code. To be safe, an INI option could be made to switch this
behaviour on and off.
As far as I can tell, the only function that would need to change would be
php_register_variable_ex in main/php_variables.c
I would be quite willing to re-code the function and hand it to someone
who has CVS access.
--
Edit bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=27572&edit=1
--
Try a CVS snapshot (php4): http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=trysnapshot4
Try a CVS snapshot (php5): http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=trysnapshot5
Fixed in CVS: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=fixedcvs
Fixed in release: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=alreadyfixed
Need backtrace: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=needtrace
Need Reproduce Script: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=needscript
Try newer version: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=oldversion
Not developer issue: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=support
Expected behavior: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=notwrong
Not enough info: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=notenoughinfo
Submitted twice: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=submittedtwice
register_globals: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=globals
PHP 3 support discontinued: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=php3
Daylight Savings: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=dst
IIS Stability: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=isapi
Install GNU Sed: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=gnused
Floating point limitations: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=27572&r=float
