Why I think PHP5 will be great...

[jgodse]

Hi.

Here is my plug for PHP5. PHP5 has improved on the language a bit from previous version. However, it has embedded SQLite (www.sqlite.org) as a database. Since SQLite is public domain and small, the PHP folks decided to embed it into the language.

SQLite is an excellent tool. It supports a good chunk of ANSI SQL. It is not a database server, but just a SQL interface to a database which is stored in a file. For web developers, this means that you don't need to pay $$$ for the privelege of using a MySQL or a Microsoft database at an ISP. All you need is PHP5, and you can use the SQL database. (See http://www.zend.com/php5/abs/php101-9.php for how to use SQLite with PHP).

In a typical 3-tier system, a request comes to the web server, which grabs the parameters, massages them, and then sends them off to an application server, which massages them more, transforms them into a SQL database request, and sends the request to a database server. The database server then serves the request, and sends the request back to the application server, which then transforms the response into presentable information and sends that back to the web server. The web server transforms the presentable information back to something readable by the browser and sends the data back to the requestor. This request uses 3 computers, 3 or more processes, and up to 4 buffered I/O operations over a network between the web server and the database.

PHP5 uses a web server. The web server spawns off a PHP script, and the script itself accesses a SQLite database on the same computer via a file i/o interface. The result is retrieved, transformed, and rendered in the same script. i.e. using PHP5 means as little as 2 processes, one file i/o, 1 computer, and no buffered i/o operations over a network. This, in my opinion will give much better responses...

SQLite is not multi-threaded, but there are ways around that if you need to scale up...


Cheers, Jay

[jgodse]

Hi.

Here is a good tutorial on SQLite. http://www.linuxgazette.com/node/9663.

They use version 3.0.8, but currently, PHP5 has 2.8.x embedded in it.

Cheers, Jay

P.S.

I built an application using 2.8.x, and I was very happy with it. For what I was doing, SQLite greatly sped up the development of the application. My colleague wasn't impressed with SQLite, and said that he would convert it to XML. That was almost a year ago, and he still has not done it, perhaps because the application works just fine.

[DDLForce]

News from phpBB.com

Recently a serious exploitable issue was discovered in PHP (the scripting language in which phpBB, IPB, vB, etc. are written) versions prior to 4.3.10. The problematical functions include unserialize and realpath. phpBB (along with a great many other scripts including IPB, vB, etc.) use these two functions as a matter of course.

It has come to our attention that code has now been released which uses this exploit in PHP to obtain confidential information in phpBB. Such information includes data contained in phpBB's config.php file. We therefore recommend the following:

1) If you maintain your own server be sure to upgrade to the newest available release of PHP (both versions 4 and 5). Be aware that at this time phpBB 2.0.x has problems functioning under PHP5 without modification.

2) If you pay for hosting ensure you hosting provider has upgraded thier installation of PHP (again remember that phpBB 2.0.x and other scripts will not function under PHP5 without modification).

Please do not submit this PHP issue to our security tracker, it is beyond our control. Fixed versions of PHP do exist and as above we encourage you to ensure your system is running such a version. Equally please examine any "hacking" issues you have carefully to ensure they are not caused by this PHP problem (rather than phpBB). Remember, this is not a phpBB exploit or problem, it's a PHP issue and thus can affect any PHP script which uses the noted functions.