PHP RFC: Slim POST data

• Version: 1.3
• Date: 2013-12-17
• Author: Michael Wallner mike@php.net
• Status: Accepted
• First Published at: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/slim_post_data

A memory usage improvement regarding receiving HTTP payloads with a potential reduction of 200-300%.

This change replaces the SAPI layer's (raw_)post_data entries with a temporary PHP stream.

If the request was a standard www-form-urlencoded or form-data POST, everything is just as it was before.

If the request had another request method or an unrecognized content type, the payload is available through the re-usable, just-in-time php://input stream.

Next 5.x, i.e. 5.6

Web-SAPIs.

Standard form POSTs and file uploads.

• Re-usable, optioanlly JITty initialized php://input stream
• Change always_populate_raw_post_data INI setting to accept three values instead of two.
  • -1: The behavior of master; don't ever populate $GLOBALS[HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA]
  • 0/off/whatever: BC behavior (populate if content-type is not registered or request method is other than POST)
  • 1/on/yes/true: BC behavior (always populate $GLOBALS[HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA])

$HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA and always_populate_raw_post_data were removed.

BC can be restored with:

$GLOBALS["HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA"] = file_get_contents("php://input");

Extensions utilizing SG(request_info).(raw_)post_data(_len).

In case of mbstring, the fix was as simple and ineffective as:

@@ -376,7 +377,10 @@ SAPI_POST_HANDLER_FUNC(php_mb_post_handler)
        info.num_from_encodings     = MBSTRG(http_input_list_size); 
        info.from_language          = MBSTRG(language);
 
-       detected = _php_mb_encoding_handler_ex(&info, arg, SG(request_info).post_data TSRMLS_CC);
+       php_stream_rewind(SG(request_info).request_body);
+       php_stream_copy_to_mem(SG(request_info).request_body, &post_data_str, PHP_STREAM_COPY_ALL, 0);
+       detected = _php_mb_encoding_handler_ex(&info, arg, post_data_str TSRMLS_CC);
+       STR_FREE(post_data_str);

The SAPI layer might be improved for SAPIs to provide their own PHP stream for POST data implementation, instead of soaking everything into the temp stream.

• Yes
• No

To see the changes already in master, do, more or less:

git diff 1c15d70^..e6084da

http://git.php.net/?p=php-src.git;a=commitdiff;h=e6084da4735c945cb071c4d9259ea0d702eb77c6;hp=52ff129607a7193cccbc6bdfbf1c1e8586e8d0d2

Always_populate_raw_post_data patch is available here:

https://github.com/m6w6/php-src/compare/php:PHP-5.6...always_populate_raw_post_data

• http://marc.info/?t=137760545600006&r=1&w=2
• http://marc.info/?l=php-internals&m=138303606829213&w=2
• http://marc.info/?t=138449998700002&r=1&w=2

• 1.1
  • Added PHP-5.6 patch to re-introduce always_populate_raw_post_data (-1/0/1)
• 1.2
  • Re-ordered the RFC and reworded some sections.
• 1.3
  • Accepted.