include file not parsed correctly

DrMartinus

Hi,

something strange happening:

In a forum software, a file is called via require or include (we tried both), and obviously it's running through (we tested that), but it does not execute a single echo command. The software is ok, it works on any other server, but not here. Is there a known issue with PHP not executing echo's in certain conditions? From what I found, the server runs

Apache/1.3.20 Sun Cobalt (Unix) mod_ssl/2.8.4 OpenSSL/0.9.6b PHP/4.0.3pl1 mod_auth_pam_external/ 0.1 FrontPage/4.0.4.3 mod_perl/1.25

Is there anything that can be done to test further? We tested if the file is been run through by including a function call which does not require output to screen, but to a file, and the program is writing to that file from within the include-file. So it's read and parsed, but not the echo commands, they are really the only part that's not executed.

TIA,

Martin

Weedpacket

Ooh, that does sound odd. If it really is only limited to one server I'd be inclined to place the blame there - either configuration or the PHP/Apache build process. Does it behave properly with other dynamically-generated content (such as Perl)? How about deliberately writing bad syntax and seeing if the error messages get through, or phpinfo(), or try setting some cookies on the client (or other header() functions). Basically, see if you can get a PHP script to send anything to the client.

One daft idea that just occurred to me that is probably quite unlikely. Maybe php.ini has some wonky settings given for things like output_buffering and output_handler. For that matter, there is the engine setting that should be On (but who'd be the bright spark who'd turn it off?).

DrMartinus

Well, the skript is putting out a lot. In fact, it's a whole page that is sent to the client. Have a look here:

http://www.mwcp.ca/PBLang/index.php

In the box "Who's online", there should be text - you can compare it to the output on my board:

PBLang support forum

The topline is a simple echo line which contains ordinary http-tags - they are not there when you look at the source of the stuff that's sent to the client.

Weedpacket

I'm not clear what the difference is: the box "Who's Logged On?" in both pages reads

there are 0 members logged in: [ Administrator ] [ Moderator ] [ User ]

DrMartinus

You're too late🙂

I've suggested a simple workaround by copying the code of the file that was supposed to be included into the file that was supposed to include it. Now it works, but the problem is the same. The echo command in the file that was to be included was not executed.