rfc:error_handler_callback_parameters_passed_by_reference

PHP RFC: Allow error_handler callback parameters to be passed by reference

Version: 0.2

Date: 2015-02-28

Authors: Reeze Xia reeze@php.net , Thomas Bley mails@thomasbley.de

Status: Declined

First Published at: http://wiki.php.net/rfc/error_handler_callback_parameters_passed_by_reference

Introduction

In userland it is sometimes necessary to extend PHP's notices/warnings with additional information (e.g. username from session, request-uri, http-host, stack trace, log-id, etc.). This reduces time and effort to analyze and fix bugs in userland code. By adding request-uri and log-id to errstr, log aggregation systems can merge the error messages to help monitoring.

Proposal

We are proposing to enable error_handler callback parameters to be passed by reference to be able to append additional data to error messages. This includes allow: 1. The first four parameters ($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline) CAN be passed by reference. 2. OR only allow $errstr parameter be reference. (depending on your vote) Examples: 1. Add username from $_SESSION to error_log to help accounting or debugging: test1.php <?php ini_set ( 'error_reporting' , E_ALL ) ; ini_set ( 'display_errors' , 0 ) ; ini_set ( 'log_errors' , 1 ) ; ini_set ( 'error_log' , 'php_error.log' ) ; $_SESSION [ 'username' ] = 'john' ; function myErrorHandler ( $errno , & $errstr , $errfile , $errline ) { if ( ! empty ( $_SESSION [ 'username' ] ) ) { $errstr .= ', username: ' . $_SESSION [ 'username' ] ; } return false ; // continue normal error handler } set_error_handler ( 'myErrorHandler' ) ; echo tests . PHP_EOL ; // Use of undefined constant tests gives: PHP Notice: Use of undefined constant tests - assumed 'tests', username: john in /tmp/test1.php on line 18 instead of: PHP Notice: Use of undefined constant tests - assumed 'tests' in /tmp/test1.php on line 18 2. Add stack trace to error_log (without xdebug): test2.php <?php ini_set ( 'error_reporting' , E_ALL ) ; ini_set ( 'display_errors' , 0 ) ; ini_set ( 'log_errors' , 1 ) ; ini_set ( 'error_log' , 'php_error.log' ) ; function myErrorHandler ( $errno , & $errstr , $errfile , $errline ) { $exception = new ErrorException ( $errstr , $errno , 0 , $errfile , $errline ) ; $errstr .= ', ' . $exception -> __toString ( ) ; return false ; // continue normal error handler } set_error_handler ( 'myErrorHandler' ) ; function test ( ) { test2 ( 'bar' ) ; } function test2 ( ) { echo tests . PHP_EOL ; // Use of undefined constant tests } test ( 'foo' ) ; gives: PHP Notice: exception 'ErrorException' with message 'Use of undefined constant tests - assumed 'tests'' in /tmp/test2.php:19 Stack trace: #0 /tmp/test2.php(19): myErrorHandler(8, 'Use of undefine...', '/tmp/test....', 19, Array) #1 /tmp/test2.php(16): test2('bar') #2 /tmp/test2.php(21): test('foo') #3 {main} in /tmp/test2.php on line 19 instead of: PHP Notice: Use of undefined constant tests - assumed 'tests' in /tmp/test2.php on line 19 3. prefix error_log with http-host, suffix error_log with request-uri and $_REQUEST: test3.php <?php ini_set ( 'error_reporting' , E_ALL ) ; ini_set ( 'display_errors' , 0 ) ; ini_set ( 'log_errors' , 1 ) ; ini_set ( 'error_log' , 'php_error.log' ) ; $_SERVER [ 'HTTP_HOST' ] = 'wiki.php.net' ; $_SERVER [ 'REQUEST_URI' ] = '/rfc/error_handler_callback_parameters_passed_by_reference' ; $_REQUEST = array ( 'do' => 'edit' ) ; function myErrorHandler ( $errno , & $errstr , $errfile , $errline ) { if ( ! empty ( $_SERVER [ 'HTTP_HOST' ] ) ) { $errstr = '[' . $_SERVER [ 'HTTP_HOST' ] . '] ' . $errstr ; } if ( ! empty ( $_SERVER [ 'REQUEST_URI' ] ) ) { $errstr .= PHP_EOL . ' Request-Uri: ' . $_SERVER [ 'REQUEST_URI' ] ; } $errstr .= PHP_EOL . ' Request-Params: ' . json_encode ( $_REQUEST ) ; $errstr .= PHP_EOL . ' ' ; return false ; // continue normal error handler } set_error_handler ( 'myErrorHandler' ) ; echo tests . PHP_EOL ; // Use of undefined constant tests gives: PHP Notice: [wiki.php.net] Use of undefined constant tests - assumed 'tests' Request-Uri: /rfc/error_handler_callback_parameters_passed_by_reference Request-Params: {"do":"edit"} in /tmp/test3.php on line 25 instead of: PHP Notice: Use of undefined constant tests - assumed 'tests' in /tmp/test3.php on line 25

Backward Incompatible Changes

Current versions of php.net allow passing parameters for a custom error handler by reference (without warnings), but they don't have any effect. Therefore, framework maintainers can use error handler callback parameters by reference without any problems in older php versions. This change is fully backward compatible. All logged errors are still limited by log_errors_max_len (default 1024 bytes).

Proposed PHP Version(s)

This is proposed for the next PHP x, currently PHP 7.

RFC Impact

To SAPIs

No impact

To Existing Extensions

No impact

To Opcache

No impact

New Constants

None

Performance

Performance is not affected in normal code execution. In case of an error that can be handled in user-space, we need to copy the referenced variables back to their origins.

Open Issues

1. Callback parameters passed by reference are currently not binary safe, example: test_binary_safe.php <?php ini_set ( 'error_reporting' , E_ALL ) ; ini_set ( 'display_errors' , 0 ) ; ini_set ( 'log_errors' , 1 ) ; ini_set ( 'error_log' , 'php_error.log' ) ; function myErrorHandler ( $errno , & $errstr , $errfile , $errline ) { $errstr .= "foo \0 bar" ; return false ; // continue normal error handler } set_error_handler ( 'myErrorHandler' ) ; echo tests . PHP_EOL ; // Use of undefined constant tests gives: PHP Notice: Use of undefined constant tests - assumed 'tests'foo in /tmp/test_binary_safe.php on line 13 instead of: PHP Notice: Use of undefined constant tests - assumed 'tests'foobar in /tmp/test_binary_safe.php on line 13 This issue is not related to this rfc and handled separately on https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=68963 2. Callback parameter errstr can be changed to an empty string, example: test_empty_errstr.php <?php ini_set ( 'error_reporting' , E_ALL ) ; ini_set ( 'display_errors' , 0 ) ; ini_set ( 'log_errors' , 1 ) ; ini_set ( 'error_log' , 'php_error.log' ) ; function myErrorHandler ( $errno , & $errstr , $errfile , $errline ) { $errstr = '' ; return false ; // continue normal error handler } set_error_handler ( 'myErrorHandler' ) ; echo tests . PHP_EOL ; // Use of undefined constant tests gives: PHP Notice: in /tmp/test_empty_errstr.php on line 13 This is similar to using the @ operator or returning true in the callback function. It is up to the userland developer to avoid this. 3. Shall we allow $errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline or only $errstr to be passed by reference? laruence: why only one parameter can be reference, but others not? reeze: I am afraid that modify the lineno and file seems a not good practice yohgaki: we certainly change line/file for appropriate one. e.g. Actual cause may be in other file/line. Setting proper file/line may not be trivial, but it would be useful. However, one may get proper line/file by debug_backtrace() in most cases. smalyshev: I personally think passing a bunch of params by-ref to change engine internal things like line number is not a good idea. With message, it could work as some kind of a stretch since message is not really an engine thing but with other params I think it's just a bad API. yohgaki: I suggest to have options in the RFC. 1 Make parameter reference For people voted for YES, choose 1. Make message a reference 2. Make all parameters references NicolasGrekas: This would allow mapping "compiled" source to real source code and have meaningful error file+line information. By "compiled", I mean e.g. inlined classes (like the bootstrap.cache.php file in Symfony), or preprocessed sources, etc. 4. Shall we target the rfc on PHP 5.5 / 5.6 ? Possible, but may not come into major distributions if they stick to special minor releases (e.g. Ubuntu 14.04: 5.5.9, Ubuntu 14.10: 5.5.12, latest: 5.5.21) 5. Why can't you just use the error_log() function to write the exact message you want? In the future, set_error_handler() might be changed to be called multiple times with different custom error handlers, similar to how register_shutdown_function() and spl_autoload_register() act on multiple calls. Having a chain of error handlers appending data to $errstr makes it difficult to use error_log(), because this is a one-time operation. Also, error_log() has the ability to override the “error_log” property from php.ini, which might not be the desired behaviour. For completeness, error_log() currently has no parameters for $errno, $line and $file, so an example would look like this: test_error_log.php function myErrorHandler ( $errno , $errstr , $errfile , $errline ) { switch ( $errno ) { case E_WARNING : $errnoStr = 'Warning' ; break ; case E_NOTICE : $errnoStr = 'Notice' ; break ; case E_STRICT : $errnoStr = 'Strict' ; break ; case E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR : $errnoStr = 'Recoverable Error' ; break ; case E_DEPRECATED : $errnoStr = 'Deprecated' ; break ; case E_USER_ERROR : $errnoStr = 'User Error' ; break ; case E_USER_WARNING : $errnoStr = 'User Warning' ; break ; case E_USER_NOTICE : $errnoStr = 'User Notice' ; break ; case E_USER_DEPRECATED : $errnoStr = 'User Deprecated' ; break ; } if ( ! empty ( $_SESSION [ 'username' ] ) ) { $errstr .= ', username: ' . $_SESSION [ 'username' ] ; } error_log ( 'PHP ' . $errnoStr . ': ' . $errstr . ' in ' . $errfile . ' on line ' . $errline ) ; return true ; }

Future Scope

set_error_handler() callback might be able to handle E_ERROR to be able to append additional information to memory_limit exhaustions (or others). For example try to analyze and fix: [13-Jan-2015 09:24:37 Europe/Berlin] PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 209715200 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 262144 bytes) in /var/www/cake/libs/model/datasources/dbo_source.php on line 419

Vote

This RFC requires a 50%+1 majority, meaning the first two choices count as Yes, the third choice counts as No. Voting started on 2015-02-13 and will end on 2015-02-27. Allow error_handler callback parameters to be passed by reference Real name Allow $errstr parameter to be passed by reference Allow $errno, $errstr, $errfile, $fileno parameter to be passed by reference No, Allow none of the parameter be a reference parameter aharvey (aharvey) ajf (ajf) bishop (bishop) dmitry (dmitry) francois (francois) galvao (galvao) guilhermeblanco (guilhermeblanco) jedibc (jedibc) kinncj (kinncj) klaussilveira (klaussilveira) laruence (laruence) lcobucci (lcobucci) leigh (leigh) mbeccati (mbeccati) nikic (nikic) rasmus (rasmus) rdlowrey (rdlowrey) reeze (reeze) stas (stas) yohgaki (yohgaki) Final result: 3 1 16 This poll has been closed.

Patches and Tests

Currently implemented on https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/1018

PR is against master and includes the first four callback parameters to be passed by reference. The PR will be updated to correspond vote if any one of the accepted. I've used to build on Ubuntu 14.04: build.sh apt - get install build - essential re2c bison git clone - b master https : //github.com/php/php-src.git cd php - src curl https : //github.com/php/php-src/pull/1018.patch | git am ./ buildconf ./ configure make sapi / cli / php ...

References

Rejected Features

None so far.

Changelog