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

[Cawa-93]

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 ); // <---------
        }

[azaozz]

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.

[azaozz]

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

[abditsori]

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)

[swissspidy]

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.

[audrasjb]

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.