Compaint about removed functionality

[gabrielcrowe]

Upgrading from php 4 to 5, you've used the php_ts binaries differently.

it does not include
mysql_connect
and fails on odbc_connect with wierd results.

please use a version of php5 with these correctly compiled in for the next version.

[gabrielcrowe]

I fixed these problems locally, by downloading and using an updated php5ts.dll from the most recent php distribution:
http://uk3.php.net/get/php-5.2.5-Win.../from/a/mirror

and also using using php.ini to override broken functions, to dlls.

[gabrielcrowe]

for someone technical in actinic towers to read:

msql.dll
libmysql.dll

was placed alongside the php5ts.dll to fix this.

adding this to the php.ini:
extension_dir="ext/"
extension=php_mysql.dll
extension=php_mysqli.dll

it seems that: '.\' does not work properly? I made a folder called ext and placed all the exts from the php distro above in it. this is a better solution.

do you know why this functionality was broken?

[zmagyar]

Upgrading from php 4 to 5, you've used the php_ts binaries differently.

Actually PHP4 and PHP5 libraries itself are so different. :-) I can recall it was a bit of pain to get the GD library working because it was in a separate DLL in PHP4 but bundled with the lib in PHP5. I suspect something similar going on here as well. But we couldn't spot it because we do not use any of these libraries in the default setup.

BTW, we are not using the standard PHP libraries because that got some bugs what results weird crashes. With the help of zend we got those fixed but I'm not sure these fixes got back to their dev trunk. So you may except random crashes with the default library but not too often luckily.

I fixed these problems locally, by downloading and using an updated php5ts.dll from the most recent php distribution:
http://uk3.php.net/get/php-5.2.5-Win.../from/a/mirror

and also using using php.ini to override broken functions, to dlls.

Do you really need a replacement php5_ts.dll for that? The php.ini tweak and the additional DLLs didn't solve the problem? If that's the case then I'm going to look into the problem and try to get it in a forthcoming maintenance release.

[gabrielcrowe]

yes, for example, in the latest version, php variables are different in the catalog, than they are in a real php file, and i couldnt track down why.

the output of md5('ActVariable'); and md5('sametext'); were dirrerent in actinic and in a server install of php, for example, try it. i uses the catalog url, as an example variable.

its suble things that are not behaving right for me, and not only that, but they are things that normal users would never use. lol.

these things, such as database connectivity and such, are the mainstay of the sql technology we came up with, and so its importsnt that people can drop these things in with no effort. As you say, php4 had thies as part of the dll, or perhaps they arent compiled into the version you made with zend. either way, the addition of the dlls fixed it fine.

incidentally, i see no problems with thie php5ts i used. no bugs at all. where specifically did you experience issues? I'll check the php5 trunk for the bugs.

thanks for your input zolty.

[zmagyar]

There were various problems. The most importan was an engine restart problem. When you are restarting the engine several times (keep switching sites or doing design upgrades) then it is crashing at least once out of 10.

The build was done for Actinic is basically the default build but some additional libraries are included (e.g. GD to provide same graph support as v8 and some encryption stuff needed elsewhere). So I'm not sure how does it make difference if you are using the default dll. Anyway I'm going to check this as soon as time permits because it sounds a bit concerning to me.

[zmagyar]

Hi Gabriel,

Sorry for the delay but due to other higher priority duties I just got here back now. First I have tried the ODBC connection. Actually I tried this with Access and it seems to be working here. I just added the following code to the section page layout and I get the tables listed on the preview.

<actinic:block php="true" >
	echo "-----< ODBC_TEST >-------<br/>";
	$dbq    =    getcwd() . "\\actiniccatalog.mdb";
	if    (!file_exists($dbq)) 
		echo "Crap!<br />No such file as $dbq<br/>"; 
	else
		echo "Good!<br />Got the file: $dbq<br/>"; 
	
	$db_connection = odbc_connect("DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)}; DBQ=$dbq", "ADODB.Connection", "", "SQL_CUR_USE_ODBC");
	if ($db_connection)
		echo "odbc connected<br>";  
	else
	  echo "odbc not connected<br>";
  
	$result = odbc_tables($db_connection);
	
	while (odbc_fetch_row($result)) {
		 if(odbc_result($result,"TABLE_TYPE")=="TABLE") {
			  echo "<br />" . odbc_result($result,"TABLE_NAME");
		 }
	} 
</actinic:block>

Can you provide some more details how did it fail in you case please? Also can you check if the code above works for you?

[zmagyar]

Now just checked the MySQL bit as well. Actually I do not think we have ever supported that by default. Tried a bit of PHP code in v8 to connect to a MySQL DB and it didn't work with the default setup. The same applies to v9.

But the PHP engine in Actinic only shlightly different to the official one. We also provide support its configuration via php.ini. So I believe you got all the tools you may need here. :-)

the output of md5('ActVariable'); and md5('sametext'); were dirrerent in actinic and in a server install of php, for example, try it. i uses the catalog url, as an example variable.

Actually I can not reproduce this one. Are you sure you set the variable's "Selectable" property to false? That must be done for all variables used inside a PHP block. You can check why is that needed if you change md5 to echo. :-)