Add magic_quotes_sybase = 0 to .htaccess (was: ajax features not working from a non-default multi-site site)

sure, and thanks for responding so quickly, Damien.

since you asked for the exact VirtualHost configuration, I'll give it to you, but the site names for our actual machines are different. so "webdevjs.ss.uci.edu" is the default (i.e., "department1.com") site, and has its settings specified in /var/www/dru/default/settings.php. all the others (including the webdevfh.ss.uci.edu which i was testing from) are specified in /var/www/dru/sites/*

the following is the virtual host additions i made to the end of our httpd.conf Apache config file:

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdev.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/html"
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdevbt.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/dru"
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdevfh.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/dru"
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdevgl.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/dru"
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdevjk.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/dru"
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdevjm.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/dru"
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdevjm01.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/dru"
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdevjm02.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/dru"
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdevjm03.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/dru"
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdevjm04.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/dru"
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdevjm05.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/dru"
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName webdevjs.ss.uci.edu
  DocumentRoot "/var/www/dru"
</VirtualHost>

hey, damien,

>What seems to happen in your case is that the JSON exporter do not properly encode double quotes in strings:

ahah! THANK YOU!!!

your noticing the quotes made me remember that on our system we have our php.ini set up for

magic_quotes_gpc     1
magic_quotes_sybase  1

since we have a sybase-type database (interbase) which we access from the same machine via php, but for non-drupal stuff, which uses a different escaping mechanism for single quote characters. the result of having these 2 php.ini directives both turned on is that *only* single quotes will be escaped, and the way they are escaped is with a second single quote (i.e., O'Reilly becomes O''Reilly). Double quotes, backslashes and NUL's will remain untouched and unescaped. this is the way we need it to access our database.

i noticed in /var/www/dru/.htaccess, the magic_quotes_gpc is turned BACK OFF in the 3 sections below:

# Override PHP settings. More in sites/default/settings.php
# but the following cannot be changed at runtime.

# PHP 4, Apache 1.
<IfModule mod_php4.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
</IfModule>

# PHP 4, Apache 2.
<IfModule sapi_apache2.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
</IfModule>

# PHP 5, Apache 1 and 2.
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
</IfModule>

BUT there is no magic_quotes_sybase value set there. so, that means that with my current installation of drupal, magic_quotes_gpc is off (0) but magic_quotes_sybase was still on. so, taking your observation, i added this line:

  php_value magic_quotes_sybase             0

to each of these 3 sections, so the result is of course:

# Override PHP settings. More in sites/default/settings.php
# but the following cannot be changed at runtime.

# PHP 4, Apache 1.
<IfModule mod_php4.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value magic_quotes_sybase             0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
</IfModule>

# PHP 4, Apache 2.
<IfModule sapi_apache2.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value magic_quotes_sybase             0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
</IfModule>

# PHP 5, Apache 1 and 2.
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
  php_value magic_quotes_gpc                0
  php_value magic_quotes_sybase             0
  php_value register_globals                0
  php_value session.auto_start              0
  php_value mbstring.http_input             pass
  php_value mbstring.http_output            pass
  php_value mbstring.encoding_translation   0
</IfModule>

now magic_quotes_sybase is turned off, and the ajax features work for all sites, including the ones set in /var/www/dru/sites/*

as to your second statement,

> I can't understand ... why you see a different behavior between the default site and the others..

i found that there was a magic_quotes_sybase set to 0 (off) in the /var/www/dru/default.settings.php file. (and thus also the /var/www/dru/settings.php file which i made by copying it):

**
 * PHP settings:
 *
 * To see what PHP settings are possible, including whether they can
 * be set at runtime (ie., when ini_set() occurs), read the PHP
 * documentation at http://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.php#ini.list
 * and take a look at the .htaccess file to see which non-runtime
 * settings are used there. Settings defined here should not be
 * duplicated there so as to avoid conflict issues.
 */
ini_set('arg_separator.output',     '&');
ini_set('magic_quotes_runtime',     0);
ini_set('magic_quotes_sybase',      0);
ini_set('session.cache_expire',     200000);
ini_set('session.cache_limiter',    'none');
ini_set('session.cookie_lifetime',  2000000);
ini_set('session.gc_maxlifetime',   200000);
ini_set('session.save_handler',     'user');
ini_set('session.use_only_cookies', 1);
ini_set('session.use_trans_sid',    0);
ini_set('url_rewriter.tags',        '');

but this file's settings only affected the default site, not the other multi-sites i have in /var/www/dru/sites/*. this is because --- as suggested in the "multisite configuration" section of the INSTALL.txt file --- i had copied over the sites/default/default.settings.php file to sites/default.settings.php, and changed only what i needed to. but i had NOT done this for the other, non-default sites. instead, i had just created a new settings.php file for each site, from scratch, adding only the few lines i thought i needed, for brevity and speed, and thinking that these other sites would "inherit" the settings from the default settings.php -- which they don't -- and overwrite only what they change. but it does not work this way, apparently. the default settings.php is not understood by drupal as "the default settings for all sites (unless overridden)" instead, it is understood as "the settings for ONLY the default site".

and, after all, the INSTALL.txt did say clearly to copy over the file and make changes.

oh well, lesson learned. i will copy over that default settings.php now to each site and adjust the appropriate lines.

however, as far as drupal code is concerned, i guess it comes down to the following choices?..

1) since having magic_quotes_sybase On seems to cause so many problems for ajax features globally, we should make the same changes to the .htaccess file in CVS that i did on my own installation, so that, just for safety, in future versions of drupal 6, this setting is by default turned off for all sites,

OR

2) some sites do need to have magic_quotes_sybase set to On. this is why it is being left as a settings.php option. so, some de-bugging needs to be done on the ajax features and how they are affected by this setting.

okay, i haven't seen any answer to this in a while, so i'm just going to go ahead and post some patches for the .htaccess file. i'm not exactly sure how Drupal's branches work, and what the latest HEAD is really pointing to (version 7?) so i'm just going to submit two patch files: one against the DRUPAL-6 branch version of the .htaccess file, and a second one against the current HEAD version of the .htaccess file.

i'll leave it up to the developers to decide whether magic_quotes_sybase set to 0/Off should be included or not, and whether to apply these patches. it seems that it should (certainly on my system), but i just don't know for everyone else.

let me know if there's anything else you need.

changing version to 6.x-dev in the hopes that it helps to catch someone's eye to this issue

hello!? is anyone there?

i submitted this patch back in september, but as of december, 3 months later, i see that versions 6.6, 6.7, and 6.8 have been released without this patch applied. and this bug is still "unassigned"..

i really don't know what i'm doing wrong to get someone's attention on this.. it's really just a simple one-liner, but i'd like to see it get included in the next (6.9) distribution if possible?

whom do i contact to get their attention? any help would be appreciated.. thanks.