Posted by Erwin Moller on 09/26/07 10:27

Smiley wrote:
> I'm fooling around with using Eval and trying to manipulate a few things. I
> ran into a couple of weird results. First of all, in one place I used the
> following code:
>
> $filestring = str_replace("<?", "\n<?\n", $filestring);
> $filestring = str_replace("?>", "\n?>\n", $filestring);
>
> Not a huge thing, just making things easier to read for me. But doing this
> gives me an error, even when I comment those lines out. I have to remove
> them completely, it seems to be interpreting the ?> and <? strangely even
> when they're in quotes or commented out. Why is that?

Hi Smiley,

I tested it, and that is NOT happening here (PHP5.2).
What version are you on?

Most probably PHP sees them as begin and end of script.
Maybe it helps to escape them in your case.
Like this:
$filestring = str_replace("\<\?", "\n\<\?\n", $filestring);

Or are you maybe using this code TOO in the wretched eval way you
describe below?


>
> Second thing, I'm having trouble getting eval to work with some of the code,
> and I have no idea why. It grabs the code to eval from other files, and I
> can't see any reason why it shouldn't work. This is the error message I'm
> getting:

Why are you using eval?

>
> Parse error: parse error, unexpected $ in
> /homepages/htdocs/parrot0123/tester.php(498) : eval()'d code on line 44
>
> I exploded the eval code and print_r'd the results, and this is what I got:
>
> Array
> (
> [0] => global $monthname;
> [1] => global $config;
> [2] => $now = time();
> [3] => $today = getdate($now);
> [4] => $curmonth = $today['mon'];
> [5] => $curyear = $today['year'];
> [6] => // Determine whether it's a leap year
> [7] => $leapyear = 0;
> [8] => $remainder = $curyear % 400;
> [9] => if(!$remainder)
> [10] => {
> [11] => $leapyear = 1;
> [12] => }
> [13] => else
> [14] => {
> [15] => $remainder = $curyear % 100;
> [16] => if ($remainder)
> [17] => {
> [18] => $remainder = $curyear % 4;
> [19] => if (!$remainder)
> [20] => {
> [21] => $leapyear = 1;
> [22] => }
> [23] => }
> [24] => }
> [25] => // Set the number of days per month
> [26] => $mdays[1] = 31;
> [27] => $mdays[2] = 28 + $leapyear;
> [28] => $mdays[3] = 31;
> [29] => $mdays[4] = 30;
> [30] => $mdays[5] = 31;
> [31] => $mdays[6] = 30;
> [32] => $mdays[7] = 31;
> [33] => $mdays[8] = 31;
> [34] => $mdays[9] = 30;
> [35] => $mdays[10] = 31;
> [36] => $mdays[11] = 30;
> [37] => $mdays[12] = 31;
> [38] => // Calculate the day of the week that the first day of this
> months falls on
> [39] => $_POST['nowmonth'] = mktime(0, 0, 0, $curmonth, 1, $curyear);
> [40] => $cmstamp = $_POST['nowmonth'];
> [41] => $datevals = getdate($ts);
> )There's no line 44, what could the problem possibly be?
>


I have no clue what you are trying to accomplish with this strange
approach, but I think you better start redesinging your app right away.
Avoid eval. It is bugprone, opens up securityholes, and is extremely
hard to debug.
Simply don't.

Sorry I cannot be of more help.
I think you'll find most people in here won't encourage this approach.

Regards,
Erwin Moller

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