Re: $_POST vs $_REQUEST

On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 07:55 +0000, Jochem Maas wrote: > Op 2/22/10 10:49 PM, John Black schreef: > > On 02/22/2010 11:42 PM, Michael Shadle wrote: > >> The difference here is you can at least have some control over the data > >> and expect it in a certain fashion. Also the behavior of cookies vs. get > >> vs. post are different (cookies have length and expiration limits, get > >> has length limits, post has server confgured limits) > > > > The cookie and post/get part is all mixed up now :) > > > > I use $_COOKIE when I want cookie information but I know that the data > > is not to be trusted and is easily fabricated. > > > > When reading get or post I just use $_REQUEST nowadays because I don't > > have to care how the submitting form is written. This makes my form > > handling data more portable. > > a. if your updating/inserting/storing data for the user you should require > POST in order to mitigate CSRF et al - not to mention using a nonce in your forms. > > b. when you use $_REQUEST like you do you assume it's either GET or POST data, but > it might be COOKIE data ... which will overwrite what is sent via GET or POST in the > $_REQUEST array .. which creates a potential for a denial-of-service attack on the > users of a site: > > imagine an 'id' parameter for displaying articles, then imagine a > user was tricked into loading a cookie onto his machine for your domain with the > name of 'id' and a value of 1 ... said user would only ever be able to see the > article referred to be id=1 if you wrote code that took the 'id' parameter from the > $_REQUEST var. > > ... I advocate not trusting any data *and* being explicit about the input vectors > on which any particular piece of data is accepted in a given context. (GET, POST and COOKIE > are 3 different vectors) > > > Which becomes a moot point if you use the request_order ini setting to specify the ordering of the overriding of variables in $_REQUEST. I do see what you're getting at, and yes there are concerns to be had with one global array overriding another if you don't know to look out for such a caveat. The thing is, there are many times where $_REQUEST is just perfect. Imagine a stylesheet picker, that remembers the visitors choice in a cookie. You can utilise $_REQUEST to handle the whole thing very easily, and in a way that makes sense. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk