Req #69450 [Wfx]: Default to ENT_SUBSTITUTE for htmlspecialchars()

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=69450&edit=1 ID: 69450 Updated by: yohgaki@php.net Reported by: olafvdspek at gmail dot com Summary: Default to ENT_SUBSTITUTE for htmlspecialchars() Status: Wont fix Type: Feature/Change Request Package: Output Control PHP Version: Irrelevant Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: Generally speaking, escape functions cannot determine if a invalid byte in multibyte stream is legitimate or not. Besides, invalid multibyte stream should be detected while input data handling. This is the best practice. Otherwise, apps may be affected by char encoding based attack any places in the software including low level lib's vulnerability. BTW, current chrome (since about 2 years ago) won't output any if input is broken badly because it's impossible to make sure security. Returning blank string perfectly makes sense for security stand point. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2015-04-14 20:28:13] nikic@php.net I also think that ENT_SUBSTITUTE is a more reasonable default behavior. Could you elaborate in which circumstances it will cause broken output? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2015-04-14 20:13:15] olafvdspek at gmail dot com If that's the case wouldn't it be even better to halt the script? Returning empty strings ALSO has the risk of broken output. Even worse, broken output is basically guaranteed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2015-04-14 19:52:03] yohgaki@php.net Replacing any invalid byte sequence in string has risk of broken output. i.e. Broken html structures, etc. If you would not want to have empty outputs from htmlspecialchars, validate all of your inputs. You can replace invalid multibyte sequence optionally. i.e. Use mb_convert_encoding(). This is the optimal way to handle text. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2015-04-14 17:50:31] olafvdspek at gmail dot com Description: ------------ Could you default to ENT_SUBSTITUTE for htmlspecialchars()? Returning an empty string seems sub-optimal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=69450&edit=1