Bug #54109 [Com]: display_errors setting causes unwanted changes in errors reported

From: Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2016 03:11:10 +0000
Subject: Bug #54109 [Com]: display_errors setting causes unwanted changes in errors reported
References: 1  Groups: php.bugs 
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Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=54109&edit=1

 ID:                 54109
 Comment by:         Sicklife4life at gmail dot com
 Reported by:        fake at example dot com
 Summary:            display_errors setting causes unwanted changes in
                     errors reported
 Status:             Verified
 Type:               Bug
 Package:            *Configuration Issues
 Operating System:   any
 PHP Version:        trunk-SVN-2011-02-27 (SVN)
 Block user comment: N
 Private report:     N

 New Comment:

I was not informed that by clicking appointed Topix was implementing submission two such topics my
apologies I am here to learn and help where I can.


Previous Comments:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2011-03-11 13:42:46] pinkgothic at gmail dot com

See also Bug #47494.

I commented there, but reckon it might be a good idea to comment here,
as well, seeing as this bug is still open. :)

> I'm afraid this isn't just confusing, but actually punishes people
> who do it right by blindsiding them completely.
>
> Scenario:
>
>  * display_errors off
>  * an Exception-throwing error handler
>
> As far as I'm informed, this is good practise. (I acknowledge I may
> be misinformed.)
>
> However, due to this behaviour, you suddenly get application crashes
> in production without that anyone really understands why the code
> snippet is suddenly a culprit. 'But we tested it with broken UTF-8,
> why are -we- just getting empty strings? And the documentation says
> that's what we should be expecting...'
[...]
> If you've been a good developer and read the manual on
> htmlspecialchars(), you're not going to expect an error. You're
> going to expect an empty string. Unfortunately currently, nothing
> in the documentation reveals that the function results in an
> E_WARNING, either pure-log-only when display_errors is on, or
> log and trigger_error()ed when display_errors is off.

I reckon this should at the very least be a documentation error,
if this explanation from stas@php.net holds:

> The idea is to return an error but not display it (i.e. log it
> or allow custom error handlers to process it).
>
> The reason for it is that, unfortunately, people run servers in
> production with display_errors=On, and
> php_escape_html_entities_ex can be triggered from all kinds of
> code that usually doesn't produce errors, which can reveal
> sensitive information on public sites.  So we chose to go after
> lesser of two evils and not generate the error in this context.
>
> For debugging, I would suggest always logging errors and
> checking the error log, as some errors may be hard to spot in
> display anyway (especially true if your script produces
> something like JSON).

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2011-02-27 03:08:43] fake at example dot com

Description:
------------
Following functions may report E_WARNING when invalid utf8 sequence detected.
json_encode
htmlspecialchars
htmlentities

However, they only issue the warning if display_errors is OFF. display_errors should not dictate
whether the warning is triggered. 

They behave this way because of following dumb logic in source code


if (!PG(display_errors)) {
    php_error_docref(NULL TSRMLS_CC, E_WARNING, "Invalid UTF-8 sequence in argument");
}


ext/standard/html.c php_escape_html_entities_ex
ext/json/json.c json_escape_string



This is more or less a repeat of http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52397 which
unfortunately got marked bogus.

Test script:
---------------
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
json_encode("\xFF");
var_dump(error_get_last());

echo "-------\n";


ini_set('display_errors', 0);
json_encode("\xFF");
var_dump(error_get_last());

//these have same problem
//htmlspecialchars("\xFF", ENT_COMPAT, 'utf-8');
//htmlentities("\xFF", ENT_COMPAT, 'utf-8');

Expected result:
----------------
I expect both calls to error_get_last() should not return null. Also, I should have two entries in
my error log.

Actual result:
--------------
First call to error_get_last() returns null, second call works. Only one message in error log. 


------------------------------------------------------------------------



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Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=54109&edit=1


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