Nuno Mariz Weblog

This is my first(and the last) time of an attempt to submit a bug to PHP.
I am using PDO in PHP5 and my Apache gets a “Segmentation Fault” when I execute an invalid SQL statement.

[26 Aug 8:02pm CEST] nmariz at estadias dot com

Description:
————
Segmentation fault in Apache when executing an invalid SQL.

apache error.log:

[Fri Aug 26 18:10:42 2005] [notice] child pid 26519 exit signal
Segmentation fault (11)

Actual result:
————–
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 1079565216 (LWP 28567)]
0×40865cf5 in _efree (ptr=0×83bbf58) at
/root/software/php-5.1.0RC1/Zend/zend_alloc.c:302
302 REMOVE_POINTER_FROM_LIST(p);
(gdb) bt
#0 0×40865cf5 in _efree (ptr=0×83bbf58) at
/root/software/php-5.1.0RC1/Zend/zend_alloc.c:302
#1 0×40727109 in pdo_mysql_stmt_dtor (stmt=0×0, tsrm_ls=0×817ecf8) at
/root/software/php-5.1.0RC1/ext/pdo_mysql/mysql_statement.c:45

(…)

[26 Aug 9:29pm CEST] xxx@php.net

Thank you for this bug report. To properly diagnose the problem, we
need a short but complete example script to be able to reproduce
this bug ourselves.

A proper reproducing script starts with < ?php and ends with ?>,
is max. 10-20 lines long and does not require any external
resources such as databases, etc.

If possible, make the script source available online and provide
an URL to it here. Try to avoid embedding huge scripts into the report.

[29 Aug 10:42am CEST] nmariz at estadias dot com

Segmentation fault when executing an invalid SQL statement:

< ?php
(…)
// invalid sql statement
$query = ‘SELECT id name,text FROM modules’;
$stmt = $this->dbconn->query($query);
$result = $stmt->fetchAll();
$stmt = null;
return $result
(…)
?>

[29 Aug 1:24pm CEST] xxx@php.net

What part in “a short but complete example script” did you not
understand?

[29 Aug 5:00pm CEST] nmariz at estadias dot com

What part in “Segmentation fault when executing an invalid
SQL(_____ANY_____) statement” did you not understand?
I think that you don’t need more code to understand what i mean.

[29 Aug 5:07pm CEST] xxx@php.net

I think you don’t understand that I am very very lazy.
And that your problem _might_ be somewhere ELSE than in the query part.
So either give the full code or go away.

Unbelievable!

UPDATE:
After i had submitted the code that he asked, the guy simply erased all logs and submitted this:

[29 Aug 11:34pm CEST] xxx@php.net

Thank you for this bug report. To properly diagnose the problem, we
need a short but complete example script to be able to reproduce
this bug ourselves.

A proper reproducing script starts with < ?php and ends with ?>,
is max. 10-20 lines long and does not require any external
resources such as databases, etc.

If possible, make the script source available online and provide
an URL to it here. Try to avoid embedding huge scripts into the report.

You can see the log in here.

The Rails hype continues:

Django for Python is the most recently announced of what is becoming a long line of web frameworks inspired by Ruby on Rails. Others that have popped up include MonoRail for .NET & Mono, Subway for Python, Trails for Java, Catalyst and Maypole for Perl. In the context of all these rails derivatives, this article on “Could Rails have been built without Ruby?” is an interesting read. [source]

For PHP we have also cake and biscuit.

“Why using templates engines if PHP is itself a template engine?” said Karlus some time ago.
The answer is: The templates engines can be a great help when you’re using a PHP framework that is built on modules(using MVC design pattern) where is necessary to fetch pieces of HTML to build a page, separating all code of PHP from HTML.
But the overhead of this templates engines is enormous, because of the all parsing envolved. So templates engines is not all about a sea of roses.
I have used Smarty for this kind of work for a long time and, in my opinion, is the best.
When i read this article i realized Karlus point of view. So based on this idea i have developed a small class that enables all funcionality that Smarty has (witch i use) but using the PHP natively as the parser.
It’s a class with only 160 lines of code(without comments), so don’t expect too much…

Features:

Using templates that are PHP files

Including templates inside templates

Caching with expired system in seconds or without expiration

Caching with id’s

Plugin system, as simple as you can get

Discover the diferences with a simple template:

<html>
<body>
{include file="header.tpl"}
Title: {$title} 
List: 
{foreach from=$list item=list_item}
{$list_item} 
{/foreach}
</body>
</htm>

<?php

require_once(‘lib/smarty/Smarty.class.php’);

$smarty =& new Smarty();
$smarty->template_dir = ’smarty/templates/’;
$smarty->compile_dir = ’smarty/templates_c/’;
$smarty->cache_dir = ’smarty/cache/’;
$smarty->caching = 1;

$smarty->assign(‘title’, ‘My Title’);
$smarty->assign(‘intro’, ‘The intro paragraph.’);
$smarty->assign(‘list’, array(‘cat’, ‘dog’, ‘mouse’));
$smarty->fetch(‘index.tpl’);

?>

<html>
<body>
<?=$this->includeTemplate("header.tpl");?>
Title: <?=$title;?> <br />
List: <br />
<?php foreach ($list as $item):?>
<?=$item;?> <br />
<?php endforeach; ?>
<html>
<body>

<?php

require_once(‘lib/Template.php’);

$tpl =& new Template();
$tpl->setTemplatesPath(‘templates/’);
$tpl->setCache(true);
$tpl->setCachePath(‘cache/’);
$tpl->setCacheId(‘nuno’);
$tpl->setExpire(0);

$tpl->assign(‘title’, ‘My Title’);
$tpl->assign(‘intro’, ‘The intro paragraph.’);
$tpl->assign(‘list’, array(‘cat’, ‘dog’, ‘mouse’));
$tpl->fetch(‘index.tpl’);

?>

Results

The time results shown below, were measured with average results to have a more accurate benchmark.
The benchmarking was made in a Celeron 2400Mhz with 512Mb of RAM.
The Y axis corresponds to the average time in seconds per request and the X axis to the number of requests.

Download

You can download the source code here.

Tim Case has recently launched theVerbalizer. It’s a learning tool for getting into Portuguese using a method of remembering verbs as the prime driver.
You can find more information in here.