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Opened 10 months ago

Last modified 10 months ago

#60355 new enhancement

Can't save object to metadata with `readonly` properties

Reported by: cawa-93's profile Cawa-93 Owned by:
Milestone: Future Release Priority: normal
Severity: minor Version:
Component: General Keywords: needs-docs
Focuses: docs Cc:

Description

If I have class with readonly property

<?php
class Foo {
  __constructor(public readonly int $prop) {}

It throws an exception if you try to save it to medatata:

update_metadata('post', 1, 'key', new Foo(1));
Error:
Cannot modify readonly property App\Namespace\Foo::$prop

  at /var/www/html/web/wp/wp-includes/formatting.php:5148
  at map_deep(object(Foo), 'stripslashes_from_strings_only')
     (/var/www/html/web/wp/wp-includes/formatting.php:5148)
  at map_deep(object(Foo), 'stripslashes_from_strings_only')
     (/var/www/html/web/wp/wp-includes/formatting.php:5143)
  at map_deep(array(object(Foo), object(Foo), object(Foo)), 'stripslashes_from_strings_only')
     (/var/www/html/web/wp/wp-includes/formatting.php:2855)
  at stripslashes_deep(array(object(Foo), object(Foo), object(Foo)))
     (/var/www/html/web/wp/wp-includes/formatting.php:5804)
  at wp_unslash(array(object(Foo), object(Foo), object(Foo)))
     (/var/www/html/web/wp/wp-includes/meta.php:208)
  at update_metadata('post', 1, 'key', array(object(Foo), object(Foo), object(Foo)), '')
     (/var/www/html/web/wp/wp-includes/post.php:2558)

The issue cause in map_deep function since it tries to overwrite properties

        $object_vars = get_object_vars( $value );
        foreach ( $object_vars as $property_name => $property_value ) {
            $value->$property_name = map_deep( $property_value, $callback ); // <---------
        }

Attachments (1)

60355.diff (737 bytes) - added by abditsori 10 months ago.

Download all attachments as: .zip

Change History (7)

#1 @azaozz
10 months ago

  • Keywords needs-docs added
  • Milestone changed from Awaiting Review to 6.5
  • Severity changed from major to minor
  • Type changed from defect (bug) to enhancement

This sounds like PHP limitation, maybe check https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.serialization.php.

Think this is a documentation problem in WP. Imho the docblocks for adding options and meta should state clearly that saving class instances or PHP objects to the DB is not recommended and that only simple objects are supported (like plain name->value pairs?). Also that the preferable format to save to the DB are strings or associative arrays, not objects.

Setting this as a "documentation enhancement" for 6.5.

Last edited 10 months ago by azaozz (previous) (diff)

#2 @azaozz
10 months ago

  • Component changed from Formatting to General

Setting this to "General" as there is no "Documentation" component...

@abditsori
10 months ago

#3 @abditsori
10 months ago

I think this issue is caused by PHP 8.1's readonly class properties. (https://php.watch/versions/8.1/readonly)

It is pretty straight forward to fix it as in the patch I attached or this PR (https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/5956/files)

Last edited 10 months ago by abditsori (previous) (diff)

#4 @swissspidy
10 months ago

Think this is a documentation problem in WP. Imho the docblocks for adding options and meta should state clearly that saving class instances or PHP objects to the DB is not recommended and that only simple objects are supported (like plain name->value pairs?). Also that the preferable format to save to the DB are strings or associative arrays, not objects.

Big +1 to this. Storing class instances in database usually causes more harm than good. Not only can it cause issues like this, but it can also inflate the database size and cause potential security issues.

As for the patch, it would need a slight update to not crash on PHP 7.0+, as isReadOnly() is only available since 8.1.

@abditsori FYI, no need to upload a patch file _and_ submit a PR. A PR is enough.

#5 @audrasjb
10 months ago

  • Milestone changed from 6.5 to Future Release

As we are close to WP 6.5 beta 1 and still waiting for a patch, let's move this ticket to Future Release milestone.

#6 @audrasjb
10 months ago

  • Focuses docs added
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