Continue the legacy...

[Dog Cow]

Guide: Getting phpBB 2.0.23 to work on PHP 6.0.0-dev
Written by Dog Cow on the evening of 13 Jan 2009.

All right, so you're not sure if phpBB 2.0.23 will run on PHP 6 and you want to make it ready? Well, the good news is, it can. So follow along. Actually, as it turns out, phpBB 2.0.23 is even easier to get running on PHP 6 than phpBB 3.0.4 is! In fact, get this: phpBB 1.4.4 will even run on PHP 6 with just _one_ change to a file. Also, a lot of popular scripts don't work on PHP 6 and need more changes than phpBB 2 does: Wordpress, IPB, CodeIgniter, Coppermine Photo Gallery, cakePHP, phpMyAdmin... just to name a few I have tested.

After you've made these 3 changes, your phpBB 2.0.23 forum should be working perfectly. Now, I can't say the same for any MODs you may have installed... though these same 3 fixes are what I used for my site, and I've got a _lot_ more code running beyond phpBB, but all of
it is coded to PHP 5 standards and so makes the transition flawlessly. Your mileage may vary.

1.) As soon as you load any phpBB 2.0.23 page, you'll get a white screen. Or, if display_errors is On, you'll get this:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function set_magic_quotes_runtime() in /Library/WebServer/Documents/phpbb2023/common.php on line 29

The reason: magic quotes no longer exists in PHP 6. So, open the common.php file.

And change this:
set_magic_quotes_runtime(0); // Disable magic_quotes_runtime

To this:
//set_magic_quotes_runtime(0); // Disable magic_quotes_runtime

Basically, you are just commenting-out that line.

2.) Now, if you reload the index page .... tada! It works! Although, you might see some Errors or Warnings displayed at the top of the page.

Here's one similar to what you might have gotten:

Warning: urlencode() expects parameter 1 to be strictly a binary string, Unicode string given in /Library/WebServer/Documents/phpbb2023/memberlist.php on line 231

The reason: Unicode.semantics has been set to On. When on, all strings in PHP are treated as Unicode. The problem? phpBB 2 wasn't written with that in mind.

Here is the solution:

Open the php.ini file (Mine is located at: /usr/local/php6/lib/php.ini)

And change this:
unicode.semantics = on

To this:
unicode.semantics = off

3.) Now, unless you've got MODs installed which are either very old or aren't coded to strict PHP standards, your entire phpBB forum should work as usual! Click around and see. But if you try to log in, you'll come up with a problem!

The reason: I don't really know, actually! It has to do with the cookies not being sent properly to the browser. But I've got a solution.

Open includes/sessions.php

Change this:
session_clean($userdata['session_id']);

setcookie($cookiename . '_data', serialize($sessiondata), $current_time + 31536000, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);

setcookie($cookiename . '_sid', $session_id, 0, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);

To this:
session_clean($userdata['session_id']);

setcookie($cookiename . '_sid', $session_id, 0, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);
setcookie($cookiename . '_data', serialize($sessiondata), $current_time + 31536000, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);

Then, change this:
setcookie($cookiename . '_data', '', $current_time - 31536000, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);
setcookie($cookiename . '_sid', '', $current_time - 31536000, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);

To this:
setcookie($cookiename . '_sid', '', $current_time - 31536000, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);
setcookie($cookiename . '_data', '', $current_time - 31536000, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);

And finally, change this:
setcookie($cookiename . '_data', serialize($sessiondata), $current_time + 31536000, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);
setcookie($cookiename . '_sid', $session_id, 0, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);

To this:
setcookie($cookiename . '_sid', $session_id, 0, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);
setcookie($cookiename . '_data', serialize($sessiondata), $current_time + 31536000, $cookiepath, $cookiedomain, $cookiesecure);

What you are doing here is making the SID cookie be sent first. There seems to be some problem with the setcookie function. This is probably related to the developmental nature of PHP 6.

[~Cowboy~]

Nice Work Dog Cow Image link

Now I'm only worried about phpMyAdmin

[Dog Cow]

[suitlocal]

[~Cowboy~]

I agree, everything should be backwards compatible.. But then I don't know the reason for leaving it out of PHP 6 though.

Perhaps they had a good reason. A security matter perhaps?

I would like to know the answer to that one.

[Ptirhiik]

It is very difficult to ensure there a backward compatibility, as silent error may hide deep problems. Getting the problem pop is probably the better way to be sure it will be noticed at least. However, php6 is still in development, so we have to wait for the final.

[Sylver Cheetah 53]

Thanks for the effort, Dog Cow! Unfortunatelly, it seems very hard to implement.
Is this the final version of PHP6? What is "dev"?

[~Cowboy~]

[JLA]

What would you say the reasons would be for choosing to go with PHP6?

Thanks

[Acaria]

Not so much a choice as "If your host upgrades to it your phpBB board is f***ed"

[JLA]

[Acaria]

Yeah, that's basically the only reason to. If you have your own host and like things the way they are, just never update your PHP. It's not like you're losing anything.

[Dog Cow]

PHP 6 has still not been officially released. There is no reason to use it on one's main web site.

However, when PHP 6 is released, it will do away with a lot of old and insecure code and thus will break many scripts. Therefore, advanced users can download the development versions of PHP 6, compile them, and test their code against it.

I have done this for my web site. It never hurts to be prepared.

[Slackervaara]

I posted this thread in a PHP-Nuke forum, as it have phpbb2, as a module and I got this reply:

interresting
but what if if we can't access php.ini , how to solve that?