[support] php-code in block is not executed...

[Leonard den Ottolander.nl]

Hello Jarry,

On Thu, 2011-01-20 at 09:22 +0100, Mr. Jarry wrote:
> That php-script works, when I call it directly.

If you call a php script via the Drupal PHP Filter it is included using
eval() from within a function. The result of this is that none of your
global variables remain visible as global. This is to avoid name space
collisions, i.e. the overwriting of Drupal variables and functions with
values coming from your script.

Also, your script should not output any http headers (and preferably no
html headers and body tag, so you cannot use template rendering engines
like Smarty to display the page. You *can* use a template engine to
return the content and echo that, as Drupal uses output buffering
(ob_start()) for eval()ed scripts.

I managed to get Retrospect GDS working via the PHP Filter by making all
of the global variables it uses explicitly global again. Say you got
something like

$myglobalvar = 1;

you have to change this to

$GLOBALS['myglobalvar'] = $myglobalvar = 1;

After that explicit globalization you can use your variables as usual.
It looks a bit odd but it doesn't break any code if you call it
directly.

Of course you should make sure your variables and functions do not clash
with internal Drupal variables and functions. A save way to do this is
to prefix your variables with a unique string, f.e. renaming
$myglobalvar to $myapp_myglobalvar.

In the case of Retrospect I had only one name space collision with
Drupal, being the function t().

Even better of course would be not to rely on any variable being global,
but that might require a bit of a rewrite of your code to pass all
parameters via function calls.

Regards,
Leonard.

-- 
mount -t life -o ro /dev/dna /genetic/research