Cannot unset string offsets [#1414892]

I was importing a bunch of nodes 6.x nodes (using 6.x-3.1) into 7.x (using 7.x-3.x-dev) and kept hitting this error:

Fatal error: Cannot unset string offsets in sites/all/modules/contrib/node_export/node_export.module on line 718

This is line 718 (with some context):

if (variable_get('node_export_reset_path_' . $node->type, TRUE)) {
      $node->path = NULL;
    }
    else {
      unset($node->path['pid']); // Line 718

I made two discoveries:

The nodes I was importing did not have $node->path['pid'], only $node->path.
PHP throws an error when you try to treat a string like an array, as with unset().

Assuming, then, that if it exists, $node->path['pid'] should be a string (which makes sense) the attached patch resolves the error.

Comment	File	Size	Author
#11	node_export-string_offset_error-1414892-11.patch	768 bytes	chromix
#10	node_export-string_offset_error-1414892-10.patch	774 bytes	chromix
#4	node_export-string_offset_error-1414892-4.patch	529 bytes	venutip
	node_export-string_offset_error.patch	458 bytes	venutip

Comments

Comment #1

venutip commented 24 January 2012 at 02:48

Status:

Active

» Needs review

Comment #2

dwaine commented 26 January 2012 at 00:08

After updating from 6.x-2.24 to 6.x-3.1 my site is seeing this same issue while testing the node import process. The exact message is:

Fatal error: Cannot unset string offsets in \sites\all\modules\node_export\node_export.module on line 626

Comment #3

danielb commented 26 January 2012 at 02:22

Can you see if this works as a replacement for line 718 in node_export.module ? If it does I would prefer to do it like this.

<?php
if (isset($node->path['pid'])) {
  unset($node->path['pid']);
}
?>

Status	File	Size
new	node_export-string_offset_error-1414892-4.patch	529 bytes

Tried your fix and still hit the same error. The problem is that (for all my nodes, anyway) $node->path is a string, not an array, so PHP thinks we're trying to access the string using array notation, and so always returns the first letter of $node->path.

How about this patch?

Comment #5

danielb commented 31 January 2012 at 08:49

Tried your fix and still hit the same error.

I don't believe you.

Comment #6

danielb commented 31 January 2012 at 08:52

But seems you're right

> The problem is isset($options['messages']) returns true even though
> $options is the string '/^[a-z]/i'. Inside isset(), PHP casts 'messages' to
> an int, so it's the same as isset($options[0]), which is the character '/'!
> Since the isset passes, unset fails because you can't unset a character
> from a string.

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/261346/

blooody php