Problem opening file - just started

basil

I am using a PhP chat program and have had it running for some time now and it seems to work great. However, just recently, I have been having an internal server error when I try to access the help section. There is a little ? that you click and it accesses a file called help_popup.php3 which causes a popup window to apprea that contains help info. Now, however, when I click the little ? I still get the popup, but I get "Internal Server Error" . Now, if I type the URL of the help_popup.php3 file directly, I get a little more info:

Fatal error: Failed opening required './localization//localized.chat.php3' (include_path='') in /home/www/mywebsite/chat/help_popup.php3 on line 9

Ok, so it seems to be unable to open a file called "localize.chat.php3". That file happens to be in several directories, just in different languages. For english, the directory/file it is in is:

mywebsite/chat/localization/english/localized.chat.php3

Okn now here's the code in the help_popup.php3 file that seems to be the problem:

<?php
 if (isset($HTTP_GET_VARS["L"])) $L = $HTTP_GET_VARS["L"];

 // Fix a security hole
if (isset($L) && !is_dir('./localization/'.$L)) exit(); 
if (isset($HTTP_GET_VARS["Ver"])) $Ver = $HTTP_GET_VARS["Ver"];

require("./config/config.lib.php3");
require("./localization/".$L."/localized.chat.php3");  

require("./lib/release.lib.php3");

Now, as I say, this only recently stopped working. It seems that the $L variable isn't working since in my error message the directory "english" is missing and I think that is what the $L is for.

It looks like the first "if(isset.... " is doing some sort of check that affects the $L variable, but I can't figure out what's happening here.

Can anyone offer any suggestions as to what the problem might be?

Thanks,
Basil

ScubaKing22

isset is basically checking to see if it has a non-null value. So that means that if $GET['L'] has a value, then $L will then contain it. Maybe try putting an else in there just in case $GET['L'] has not been given a value.

basil

What is odd is, if I try to access this from my computer at work it works fine, but when I try to access it from my home computer I get the error. How does the HTTP_GET_VARS work and could it be something in my browser settings causing the problem, OR could it be that my ISP has a new version of PhP which works differently? This had been working fine for over a year.

Thanks
Basil

basil

Ok, I was trying to find some info on HTTP_GET_VARS and ran across this in the version 4.2.3 release notes:

Introduced $GET, $POST, $COOKIE, $SERVER and $ENV variables, which deprecate the old $HTTP*_VARS arrays. In addition to be much shorter to type - these variables are also available regardless of the scope, and there's no need to import them using the 'global' statement. (Andi & Zeev)

I did check using phpinfo and my ISP is using version 4.2.3. Now the question is, since my problem seems to be associated with this HTTP_GET_VARS could it be that this new version isn't supporting HTTP_GET_VARS (or might there be a setting in the OHO config they would need to make in order to support it?). In the meatime, I'm going to try an change the HTTP_GET_VARS statement in my code to $_GET and see what happens!

Basil

laserlight

the old HTTP*VARS are still supported in newer versions, though not encouraged.

it does seem to be a problem clientside though, since it works when accessed from one place and fails in another.

not sure what the problem is though.
could it be that the required variable isnt being passed in the query string in one case?

basil

Originally posted by laserlight
the old HTTP*VARS are still supported in newer versions, though not encouraged.

it does seem to be a problem clientside though, since it works when accessed from one place and fails in another.

not sure what the problem is though.
could it be that the required variable isnt being passed in the query string in one case?

Good thought, but it "seems" to be being passed. That is, at least when I point at the link that is supposed to take me to the help_popup.php3 page, the url in my browser says:

www.mysiteXYZ123.com/help_popup.php3?L=english&Ver=H

So it seems as if I am at least attempting to pass the L and H variables (or at least attemptig to).

The problem seems to be though that $L is not being set (see original post with code). When I try to access help_popup.php3 directly, it says it could not open a required file, but it looks as if the $L variable used in the directory path to the required file is blank. (In my case, $L should equal the word "english" and there is a directory chat/english which contains the reqired file.

If I take the line:

require("./localization/".$L."/localized.chat.php3");

and hard-code the directory path like this:

require("./localization/english/localized.chat.php3");

then, when I access help_popup.php3 directly, it works, but when I try by using the link I still get an error. So I am now convinced that something in the HTTP_GET_VARS is not working. By the way, I did try to change the $HTTP_GET_VARS to just $_GET and that didn't work either.

So now the question: Is there possibly some setting in the new PHP version that is not set correctly to allow this to work? Or any other ideas?

Basil

meediake

You should also check data:

<?
$_GET=$HTTP_GET_VARS; //to fix problem with php3
$permitted_L=array("english","german","estonian","etc");
if(in_array($_GET['L'],$permitted_L))
{
    require("./localization/".$_GET['L']."/localized.chat.php3");
}
else
{
    require("./localization/english/localized.chat.php3");
}
 ?>