Please provide a complete, self-contained script(s) so we can try and reproduce this ourselves.

OK.

To reproduce this,
please download:
http://www2.pennysaverusa.com/barry/virtual_php_crash.tgz

Tested on RC3 and RC4 and php4-STABLE-200305222330
all segfault.

Notes:
1 unset session variable is _not_ enough to trigger the crash. 2 variables seems to be sufficient on my server.

The head and footer files are plain html. I named them with .php out of habit. With .txt, it does not crash.
I know php won't (or at least shouldn't) parse them as php when using virtual, so I see no reasonable excuse for it to crash.

As I mentioned before, with DBG enabled or disabled, it still segfaults.

Thanks,
Barry Gould

FYI: Using virtual() for this is absolutely useless, you really should be using include(). And as manual says:

"virtual() cannot be used to include a document which is itself a PHP file."

As otherwise the results are unpredictable..
(I didn't get any crash anyway)

I am aware of that.

However, this was not a PHP file. It is merely an html file with a .php extension.

There is no good reason for it to segfault.

If the policy is that .php files will not be loaded with virtual, then DON'T LOAD IT. GIVE AN ERROR. DON'T RANDOMLY CRASH.

Random crashes are inexcusable. At least try to make the software idiot-proof. Give the idiot an error or warning message.

At least, the documentation for virtual should mention this problem if it's not going to be fixed.

Thank you,
Barry Gould

What sniper says is not in line with the current manual. The current manual says that as of PHP 4.0.6 virtual() can be used on PHP files. So the manual is not correct I assume. Changing this to be a doc problem.

virtual() works fine on PHP files, as documented (although I can't test old versions), so I believe sniper was just mistaken and don't see anything here to document.

Barry, are you sure you set the ulimit before the backtrace?  That's extremely important.  I'm unable to reproduce and changing back to Apache related.

Someone changed the online docs VERY recently, however I'm sure there is a problem here.

I did "ulimit -c unlimited", and then ran apache manually (with all the -DHAVEs) but no core file was produced.

Thanks,
Barry

Philip, did you try the test files I linked?

Thanks,
Barry

First of all, your example stuff is totally bogus. 
. There is no session_start() anywhere
. You include pure html as php using virtual when you should be using include()

Second, it never crashes, of course you don't get any core files.

Third, there are easier ways to shoot yourself in leg too,
but we still don't suggest you should do it.

Fourth, as long as you can't provide us any example that actually has any far possibility on working and uses some
sane ways on doing things, this is bogus.

Phillip: virtual() might work for including php files, but the result is still unpredictable..

Hi Sniper, 

I have session_auto_start ON.

I didn't think that the extension was that meaningful (as is usually the case in UNIX). I made it .php for security (so no one can list the file in a browser). The docs did not seem to indicate that this would be a problem.

Also, the docs now say you can use virtual with php.

It does crash... "child pid 7413 exit signal Segmentation
fault (11)" in apache error log.

If it won't/can't be fixed, I suggest:
1. improve the documentation to say what not to do.
2. have the virtual function give a warning or error if the user does something bad.

Thank you,
Barry