Re: Parameter parsing for zval type?

H Dmitry, ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dmitry Stogov" Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2015

On Tue, Aug 11, 2015 at 11:10 PM, Matt Wilmas <php_lists@realplain.com> wrote:

[...] Look at e.g. is_numeric() or strpos() (needle). Plain zval param parsing, so NO ZVAL_DEREF() occurs (FAST_ZPP or traditional). These 2 example functions don't handle IS_REFERENCE type, so they would break. Or is there no way for them (or any function?) to get a IS_REFERENCE? Then *why* is there ZVAL_DEREF() in param parsing functions? We could remove it!

We probably may remove ZVAL_DEREF() for functions arguments passed by value, but we don't know if argument was passed by value or by reference in ZPP functions. Actually, in FAST_ZPP for scalars we may probably assume passing by value and remove ZVAL_DEREF(), but I'm not sure if this is 100% safe.

Yes, speaking of scalars, I had already noticed that it doesn't make sense to have a "separate" argument for the FAST_ZPP scalar _EX macros, as there's nothing to separate (same with traditional '/') on simple values. I was changing those macros, and don't think they're used anyway. Also, I think those simple/scalar types wouldn't be used with by-reference arguments (?), as there would be nothing to update... Like I said in reply to Nikita, it seems like separating is needed for by-reference args, so only need DEREF if *also* separating? It looks like that was the idea with Z_PARAM_ZVAL_EX(). And for other types, separating only applies to arrays or strings, I believe. As far as not 100% safe, you mean IS_REFERENCE type causing an error about wrong type? Shouldn't that only happen if developer indicated by-ref arg, but then used wrong type in parsing? On the other hand, it seems like always using ZVAL_DEREF() won't hurt anything? e.g. part of my confusion was that I thought IS_REFERENCE was wanting to be *kept* in some cases (after parsing), but it seems to not be the case. :-) Speaking of confusion, it also seems the DEREF stuff is unnecessary in type.c:php_is_type(), for example.

Thanks. Dmitry.

Thanks, Matt