Req #71571 [Opn]: XSLT processor should provide option to change maxDepth

From: Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2021 16:54:37 +0000
Subject: Req #71571 [Opn]: XSLT processor should provide option to change maxDepth
References: 1  Groups: php.bugs 
Request: Send a blank email to php-bugs+get-232827@lists.php.net to get a copy of this message
Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=71571&edit=1

 ID:                 71571
 Updated by:         cmb@php.net
 Reported by:        sam dot marshall at open dot ac dot uk
 Summary:            XSLT processor should provide option to change
                     maxDepth
 Status:             Open
 Type:               Feature/Change Request
 Package:            XSLT related
 PHP Version:        7.0.3
 Block user comment: N
 Private report:     N

 New Comment:

Doesn't appear to be hard to support this feature; the
::transform*() methods could take an additional optional
parameter, and we would have to assign its value to the respective
maxTemplateDepth member of struct _xsltTransformContext[1].

[1] <https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/php-7.4.16/ext/xsl/xsltprocessor.c#L532>


Previous Comments:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2016-02-11 15:59:36] sam dot marshall at open dot ac dot uk

Description:
------------
The libxslt XSLT processor has a recursion depth limit, which appears to be different in different
versions. (I briefly looked at the libxslt source and couldn't find this change so it might
depend on the operating system and/or PHP version, or specific OS configuration.)

The provided test script demonstrates the recursion limit in practice; the script will print out
lots of numbers before ending with an error, and the recursion limit is the last number + 1. Here
are some examples from three different systems:

PHP 5.4.36 RHEL 5, libxslt 1.1.17: limit is 12,500
PHP 5.4.40 RHEL 7, libxslt 1.1.28: limit is 3,000
PHP 7.0.3 Mac, libxslt 1.1.28: limit is 3,000

When you hit the recursion limit, you see the following information in the PHP warnings that appear:

Warning: XSLTProcessor::transformToDoc(): runtime error: [...]
Warning: XSLTProcessor::transformToDoc(): xsltApplyXSLTTemplate: A potential infinite template
recursion was detected.
You can adjust xsltMaxDepth (--maxdepth) in order to raise the maximum number of nested template
calls and variables/params (currently set to 3000). in [...]

This is a helpful message and if using the command-line xsltproc or the C library, I believe
it's possible to adjust that maximum number exactly as it says. However, there is currently no
way to change the maxdepth parameter from PHP.

So the change request: It would be nice if there were a php.ini parameter, or a way to set this on
the XSLTProcessor instance, or something similar, so that this value could be increased.

For background: when using pure XSLT it is often necessary to create heavily recursive code, so the
3,000 limit is actually not completely unreasonable (although it does probably indicate that your
code could do with a rewrite - in the case where I actually experienced this problem, I was able to
resolve it by changing the XSLT, but it would be good to have the option of changing the parameter).

Test script:
---------------
http://pastebin.com/B0rRaRH2



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Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=71571&edit=1


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