Something else to take into consideration is run-tests.php is overriding the error_reporting settings from php.ini.  This is causing tests to fail even though the same tests worked fine under development versions of PHP 5.

Here's a new set of test scripts...

=========== s.phpt ================
--TEST--
error_reporting ignored for code in phpt
--SKIPIF--
--FILE--
<?php

echo 'Default error_reporting in s.phpt: ' . error_reporting() . "\n";

/*
 * RESULT:
 *   Strict Standards: var: Deprecated. Please use the
 *       public/private/protected modifiers in s.php on line 28
 *   Default error_reporting in s.phpt: 4095
 *   The error_reporting in s.inc: 2047
 *   Subsequent error_reporting in s.phpt: 2047
 *
 * RESULT if error_reporting(E_ALL) is commented out:
 *   Strict Standards: var: Deprecated. Please use the
 *       public/private/protected modifiers in s.php on line 28
 *   Default error_reporting in s.phpt: 4095
 *   Strict Standards: var: Deprecated. Please use the
 *       public/private/protected modifiers in s.inc on line 6
 *   The error_reporting in s.inc: 4095
 *   Subsequent error_reporting in s.phpt: 4095
 */
error_reporting(E_ALL);

include './s.inc';

class phpt {
    var $phpt_var;
}

echo 'Subsequent error_reporting in s.phpt: ' . error_reporting() . "\n";

?>
--EXPECT--
Default error_reporting in s.phpt: 2047
The error_reporting in s.inc: 2047
Subsequent error_reporting in s.phpt: 2047



=========== s.inc ================
<?php

echo 'The error_reporting in s.inc: ' . error_reporting() . "\n";

class inc {
    var $inc_var;
}

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, but this is not
a bug. Please double-check the documentation available at
http://www.php.net/manual/ and the instructions on how to report
a bug at http://bugs.php.net/how-to-report.php

Certain E_STRICT notices (such as var being deprecated) are emited at compile-time therefore changing the error_reporting (which only happens at run-time) will not affect it. You will need to make sure that E_STRICT is turned off in the INI. One work around for the tests might be to put the source in an include file and change error_reporting before we include it. This issue was discussed on internals@ a few months back and this behavior was agreed on because some of these E_STRICT issues have to be detected at compile-time.

And you should use an --INI-- section in your test file for this anyway.

Andi:

Thanks for the --INI-- tip.

Regarding your first email which said "make sure that E_STRICT is turned off in the INI," php.ini already had reporting set to E_ALL but it's being ignored.

The reason I posted it as a bug was this issue seems to have only arose in the recent past.  This issue hadn't come up while I was developing DB and HTML_Form even though I've been running snapshots of PHP 5 for a long while.

Thanks again.