From: crazytonyi at gmail dot com
Operating system:
PHP version: 5.5.30
Package: IMAP related
Bug Type: Documentation Problem
Bug description:imap_search auto-corrects Date string in criteria using undocumented algorithm
Description:
------------
---
From manual page: http://www.php.net/function.imap-search
---
If you set $criteria argument for imap_search function using string such
as:
'SINCE "Mon, 28 Dec 2015 02:55:04 +0000" UNDELETED'
it will reformat the string to something like:
'UNDELETED SINCE 28-Dec-2015'
This is mostly a good thing, except:
1. Nowhere in imap_search documentation does it reflect this
auto-correction behavior,
2. Nowhere in imap_search documentation does it indicate the algorithm
or mechanism that is applied to the datetime sub-string to derive a
"pure datetime" value for correct formatting,
3. Throughout the documentation User Notes thread, there are several
references to confusion regarding the "correct date formatting",
including those that encourage the formatting used in the documentation
examples ( such as "8 August 2008" ) versus those that encourage
following the RFC-3501 spec ( which would be "08-Aug-2008" for that same
example). So the fact that PHP is automatically handling date strings to
format to RFC-3501 formatting is not well-known or being leveraged in a
reliable, intentional manner.
4. Since there is no indication of what algorithm is used for parsing
input date strings, it is not clear whether the following:
'SINCE "12-01-2015" UNDELETED'
would be handled as:
a. Invalid (un-parseable) date string
b. 12-Jan-2015
c. 01-Dec-2015
5. Also, PHP uses current timezone set (either via INI directive or
date_default_timezone_set, etc) for formatting to RTC-3501, so that
change to local system timezone means different resulting IMAP search
criteria.
Test script:
---------------
date_default_timezone_set('UTC');
$conn = imap_open('{localhost:143}INBOX', 'user@example.org',
'password', OP_READONLY);
$since = date('r');
$criteria = "SINCE \"{$since}\" UNDELETED";
echo $criteria . PHP_EOL;
$search = imap_search($conn, $criteria, SE_UID);
print_r($search);
Expected result:
----------------
1. IMAP search criteria are sent with actual value of $criteria
argument, like:
UID SEARCH SINCE "Mon, 28 Dec 2015 02:55:04 +0000" UNDELETED
OR
2. IMAP search criteria gets reformatted as it does currently, but with
consistent results (independent of timezone) so that:
date_default_timezone_set('UTC');
$since = date('r');
$criteria = "SINCE \"{$since}\" UNDELETED";
VS
date_default_timezone_set('America/Los Angeles');
$since = date('r');
$criteria = "SINCE \"{$since}\" UNDELETED";
both result in same search criteria sent to IMAP server, like:
'UNDELETED SINCE 28-Dec-2015'
instead of the criteria, when timezone is set to UTC, being:
'UNDELETED SINCE 28-Dec-2015'
versus when timezone is set to "America/Los Angeles", with result
being:
'UNDELETED SINCE 27-Dec-2015'
-----
Note that some of this is actually more of a weakness of the IMAP
specification (which indicates that SINCE should not include time or
timezone but doesn't indicate what pure date should be relative to), as
well as a probable issue with IMAP server misbehaving and using its own
local timezone when it shouldn't be. However, the fact that PHP does
this auto-correction AND the fact that there is potential for problems
due to date-related searches, it should be more clear in PHP
documentation what to expect based on value passed in to imap_search
function compared to SEARCH command that is actually sent to PHP server.
--
Edit bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=71228&edit=1
--
Try a snapshot (PHP 5.4): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=trysnapshot54
Try a snapshot (PHP 5.5): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=trysnapshot55
Try a snapshot (trunk): https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=trysnapshottrunk
Fixed in SVN: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=fixed
Fixed in release: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=alreadyfixed
Need backtrace: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=needtrace
Need Reproduce Script: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=needscript
Try newer version: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=oldversion
Not developer issue: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=support
Expected behavior: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=notwrong
Not enough info: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=notenoughinfo
Submitted twice: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=submittedtwice
register_globals: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=globals
PHP 4 support discontinued: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=php4
Daylight Savings: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=dst
IIS Stability: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=isapi
Install GNU Sed: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=gnused
Floating point limitations: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=float
No Zend Extensions: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=nozend
MySQL Configuration Error: https://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=71228&r=mysqlcfg