Bug #11091: globa and isset in function difficult to use

From: gary.wong@spingroup.com Operating system: NT4SP6 PHP version: 4.0.5 PHP Bug Type: Scripting Engine problem Bug description: globa and isset in function difficult to use PHP 4.04 to 4.05 upgrade introduced new problems in PHPLIB. In page.inc, there is a function like this: function page_close() { global $sess, $user; if (isset($sess)) { $sess->freeze(); } if (isset($user)) { $user->freeze(); } } The intent is that if the $user or $sess classes were never set, then it would not try to call the freze method. However, in 4.05, the "global" statement cause the "isset" statement to return "true" just by declaring them global. I read from the other bug reports that this is kind of a "feature" where the global simply creates a "reference" to the $GLOBALS. But then, how do we recode? The only solution I found is this: function page_close() { if (in_array("sess",array_keys($GLOBALS))) global $sess; if (in_array("user",array_keys($GLOBALS))) global $user; if (isset($sess)) { $sess->freeze(); } if (isset($user)) { $user->freeze(); } } This is kind of messy! Is there any other way? Or can "global" be changed so that it only creates the reference if the var exists? Thanks, Gary -- Edit Bug report at: http://bugs.php.net/?id=11091&edit=1