Re: Upgrading php

On Thu, 2005-11-17 at 16:47 -0800, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: > Todd Ruth wrote: ... > > It would be so wonderful to throw all my code at a tool that would > > change everything that can be easily changed and give me a list of > > spots I need to look at manually. A lot of the changes don't take > > an overwhelming amount of time to do myself, but when you think > > about the thousands of users all doing the same conversions, it just > > makes sense for there to be a tool. It might also have the side > > benefit of reducing long threads about breaking old code. > > > > Perhaps this already exists and I've missed it. Perhaps it will > > never exist because it isn't enough fun to write. Just an idea... > > This is what the E_STRICT messages are for. If you turn them on (in PHP > 5) you will get very specific messages about language-level issues in > your code. > > -Rasmus I appreciate those messages. There are probably things that come up at runtime for which the E_STRICT messages are the only good option. (My guess is that it would be too much trouble to make a version of php that rewrites my source code on the fly. ;) ) On the other hand, my current upgrade approach is: - go to the new version - try to use all of my code paths and copy and paste the notices to a file - sed the file into a list of vi commands that take me to every line that generated a message - after recognizing the pattern for the simple fixes, define macros to do most of the work - Try to maintain consciousness while applying the macros over and over again. If I weren't nearly the last person on the planet to upgrade, it would be useful for me to at least post my vi macros somewhere. Perhaps if other people are following a similar approach, they could post whatever they use to get them over hurdles. The hope in my original email is that if php is clever enough to give me a message, it might be clever enough to just make the change too. I appologize again for bringing this up without providing any tools. I just wanted to make sure it was considered. Maybe there could be a spot on php.net where people are encouraged to post (or at least post links to) what helped them get through php transitions. Thanks again, Todd