Bug #81025 [Opn->Nab]: Session deserialization does not handle UTF-8 BOM

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=81025&edit=1 ID: 81025 Updated by: requinix@php.net Reported by: Parkhideh at att dot net Summary: Session deserialization does not handle UTF-8 BOM -Status: Open +Status: Not a bug Type: Bug Package: Built-in web server Operating System: Windows 10 PHP Version: 7.4.19 Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: UTF-8 has a BOM defined because multibyte encodings try to define one (in case some readers need that information) but even the standard recommends not using it. If you save with the BOM then that adds three bytes before the opening <?php, which PHP will use to begin output, which means functions like session_start() and header() that require executing before output has begun will not work. If you had error logging set up properly for your environment then you would have seen a warning from PHP about this happening. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2021-05-09 22:14:51] fgfgfg dot hjhjhjhj at ghghgh dot fg don't use BOM - well known fact for 15 years at least ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2021-05-09 22:11:59] Parkhideh at att dot net Description: ------------ --- From manual page: https://php.net/function.session-start --- I read many comments about why a session_start() does not connect. Luckily one of my 8 lines test program did work. The difference was the non-working php file was saved as "UTF-8 with BOM" that made every thing else work but session_start(). Note that on the local PortableApps xampp with php 8.0.3 under Windows 10 session_start() connects correctly. On host www.1and1.com with php 7.4 and 8.05 this problem shows. Frankly I did not know that UTF-8 had a BOM option till now!! Unicode https://www.unicode.org/faq/utf_bom.html claims it doesn't, Windows 10 does it anyway. Test script: --------------- Setup php file: <?php session_start(); $_SESSION['keyword'] = 1916; $_SESSION['driverVer'] = "1.1.1"; $CrLf = "\r\n"; echo "<br>PHP version is " . phpversion() . $CrLf; exit; ?> Run file showing the error: <?php session_start(); $q = $_SESSION['keyword']; $v = $_SESSION['driverVer']; $CrLf = "\r\n"; echo "<br>-- $q -- $v -- , PHP version is " . phpversion() . $CrLf; exit; ?> Expected result: ---------------- If the second file is saved as "UTF-8 with BOM"; then on some systems it will generate an error message. Note that the same file saved as UTF-8 is a few bytes smaller, but both will pass the compare text test. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=81025&edit=1