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PHP RFC: Slim POST data
- Version: 1.0
- Date: 2013-11-19
- Author: Michael Wallner mike@php.net
- Status: Thought it's done already
- First Published at: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/slim_post_data
Introduction
This is not a new feature per-se.
It is a memory usage improvement regarding receiving HTTP payloads with a potential reduction of 200-300%.
Proposal
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.
Backward Incompatible Changes
$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");
However, always_populate_raw_post_data may be re-introduced again to mitigate part of this BC issue. It could even be made PHP_INI_USER to further minimize the impact, but I guess it makes no difference if one has to call ini_set or file_get_contents...
Proposed PHP Version(s)
Next 5.x, i.e. 5.6
SAPIs Impacted
Web-SAPIs.
Impact to Existing Extensions
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);
Open Issues
- Reintroduce always_populate_raw_post_data?
Unaffected PHP Functionality
Standard form POSTs and file uploads.
Future Scope
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.
Proposed Voting Choices
- Yes, leave it as is.
- Yes, but re-introduce always_populate_raw_post_data.
- No, go away.
Patches and Tests
More or less:
git diff 1c15d70^..e6084da