Ubuntu
smarty package

Some portions of Smarty are broken in PHP >= 5.1.2

Bug #35385 reported by Chris Wagner
16
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Dapper Backports
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
smarty (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Medium
Unassigned
Dapper
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

This problem is present in dapper.

The details of the problem aren't really worth going into much detail, here. It has to do with the way PHP handles references (or something). What makes this real nasty is that, if the user is not using PHP's E_STRICT (to make PHP show error messages for certain problems), he may not even get an error message, and may just have his Smarty templates all-of-a-sudden stop working properly. The php5 package in Ubuntu ships with E_STRICT *off*, by default!

An example of breakage due to this bug: I was using a Smarty "block" plug-in to create dynamic tables. Under the current Smarty/PHP combination in dapper, the tables would not render correctly.

For more detail on the problem, see this thread:
http://news.php.net/php.smarty.dev/2829

The current version of Smarty in dapper is 2.6.11. If Smarty is simply upgraded to 2.6.12 or higher this problem should be solved.

The changes between Smary 2.6.11 and 2.6.13 are quite small (all bug fixes, I believe); I have not looked into the changes between 2.6.13 and any higher version. It seems likely that anyone whom will actually be using Smarty has a real good chance of running into this problem.

See original description
Revision history for this message
Greg Taylor (gtaylor) wrote :

I'd definitely second this, especially if Dapper is aiming to become a presence in the server market.

Revision history for this message
Chris Wagner (chris-wagner) wrote :

I was going to attempt to package the latest version of Smarty, and subsequently ask for a "version freeze exception", but I've not really done a package before and thus have not had enough time to mess with this right now.

As you can see (http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/smarty), Debian currently has the same version as Dapper, so in order to get the update into Dapper, someone would have to package the latest Smarty version.

description: updated
Revision history for this message
C Snover (launchpad-net-zetafleet) wrote :

The latest version of Smarty is packaged for Edgy. I installed this package to Dapper without any problems. I would strongly recommend that this package be introduced to dapper-backports or into the main dapper universe repository since there are several critical fixes that were made between 2.6.11 and 2.6.12+.

Revision history for this message
Chris Wagner (chris-wagner) wrote :

Hmm... There is probably a standard process for suggesting that something be backported. Does anyone know for sure, off-hand? Otherwise, I will look into it, if I get time.

Revision history for this message
John Dong (jdong) wrote :

I will look at backporting the Edgy smarty to Dapper.

Please confirm: is the smarty in edgy new enough, or do the Edgy developers still need to package something?

Changed in dapper-backports:
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
George Patterson (george-patterson) wrote :

No, the version of Smarty in Edgy is the latest stable release, any newer and you would need to fetch from cvs (see http://smarty.php.net/download.php for details)

Chris Wagner (chris-wagner)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
John Dong (jdong) wrote :

Rejecting upstream side of bug -- New enough source packages already available.

Changed in smarty:
status: Unconfirmed → Rejected
Revision history for this message
Chris Wagner (chris-wagner) wrote :

I've requested a backport: bug 59029

description: updated
Revision history for this message
John Dong (jdong) wrote :

Looks good for me; let's wait for some more testing.

Revision history for this message
Chris Wagner (chris-wagner) wrote :

Is there a preliminary package somewhere, for testing? I have been using a more recent version of Smarty (the latest, I believe), installed from the upstream tarball, on Dapper for some time now.

Revision history for this message
John Dong (jdong) wrote :

I've attached one.

Revision history for this message
John Dong (jdong) wrote :

Tested and approved for backporting.

Changed in dapper-backports:
status: Confirmed → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Tollef Fog Heen (tfheen) wrote :

This should be a stable release update, not a backport.

Revision history for this message
Tollef Fog Heen (tfheen) wrote :

Should not be a backport, but rather a stable release update. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/SRU for the procedure.

Changed in dapper-backports:
status: In Progress → Rejected
Revision history for this message
Tollef Fog Heen (tfheen) wrote :

I have subscribed the MOTU SRU team to this bug; please review and do an update if you think it's appropriate. I've also unsubscribed ubuntu-archive since there's currently nothing for us to do about this.

Revision history for this message
Chris Wagner (chris-wagner) wrote :

Note that, I recently installed the latest version of Smarty, 2.6.16, and it seemed to break other parts of my application, specifically, one or more of my Smarty plug-ins. I suspect this breakage occurred in the 2.6.15 release, as 2.6.16 was a small change. I have not yet had time to look into this to determine the exact problem.

Anyhow, if an update to Dapper is considered, you'll probably want to stick with 2.6.14... unless another version is released, in the meantime, that resolves this new issue.

Revision history for this message
StefanPotyra (sistpoty) wrote :

Hi,

After quickly looking through the changes between 2.6.11 and 2.6.14, these are imo good to go as is for an SRU. Now only someone needs to supply a debdiff and take care for the SRU.

Unsubscribing motu-sru in the meantime. Once someone will take care and provides the necessary info, please resubscribe.

Thanks,
     Stefan.

Greg Taylor (gtaylor)
Changed in smarty (Ubuntu Dapper):
status: New → Invalid
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