PHP value compression incompatible with Java/.NET

A customer has reported a bug in Couchbase's PHP client code. The code referred to is actually a compiled C module that PHP talks to. This bug is related to uncompressed JSON content originating from Java/.NET/ETC clients.

Background: When attempting to test PHP fetching of JAVA-originating JSON content from Couchbase, he received errors from the C code that initiates decompression of Couchbase payloads.

After introducing a hack to simply ignore decompression and after fixing a string length bug, everything worked fine.

Here's where the problem lies and what he did. (Note: All those fprintf() calls are his, and the whitespace formatting problems are due to e-mail loss):

Line 680 of "couchbase.c"

static int php_couchbase_zval_from_payload(zval value, char *payload, size_t payload_len, unsigned int flags, int serializer TSRMLS_DC) / {{{ */ {
int compressor;
zend_bool payload_emalloc = 0;
#ifdef HAVE_COMPRESSION
char *buffer = NULL;
#endif

fprintf(stdout, "C Code: Entering php_couchbase_zval_from_payload: line 687\n");
fprintf(stdout, "C Code: Raw Payload: %s: line 688\n", payload);

if (payload == NULL && payload_len > 0)

{ php_error_docref(NULL TSRMLS_CC, E_WARNING, "could not handle non-existing value of length %zu", payload_len); return 0; }

else if (payload == NULL) {
if ((flags & 127) == IS_BOOL)

{ ZVAL_FALSE(value); }

else

{ ZVAL_EMPTY_STRING(value); }

return 1;
}

if ((compressor = COUCHBASE_GET_COMPRESSION(flags))) { #ifdef HAVE_COMPRESSION
size_t len, length;
zend_bool decompress_status = 0;
/* This is copied from pecl-memcached */
////memcpy(&len, payload, sizeof(size_t));
len = strlen(payload);
compressor = 123;

fprintf(stdout, "C Code: Attempting to allocate memory bytes: %i: line 711\n", len+1);
buffer = emalloc(len + 1);

////payload_len -= sizeof(size_t);
////payload += sizeof(size_t);
length = len;

switch (compressor) {
case 123:
////Hack job
decompress_status = 1;
length = len;
memcpy(buffer, payload, len + 1);
fprintf(stdout, "\n\nHack fix on line 758:\n\n%s\n\n", buffer);

break;
case COUCHBASE_COMPRESSION_FASTLZ:
#ifdef HAVE_COMPRESSION_FASTLZ
decompress_status = ((length = fastlz_decompress(payload, payload_len, buffer, len)) > 0);
#else
php_error_docref(NULL TSRMLS_CC, E_WARNING, "could not decompress value, no fastlz lib support");
return 0;
#endif
break;
case COUCHBASE_COMPRESSION_ZLIB:
#ifdef HAVE_COMPRESSION_ZLIB
decompress_status = (uncompress((Bytef *)buffer, &length, (Bytef *)payload, payload_len) == Z_OK);
/* Fall back to 'old style decompression' */
if (!decompress_status) {
unsigned int factor = 1, maxfactor = 16;
int status;

do

{ length = (unsigned long)payload_len * (1 << factor++); buffer = erealloc(buffer, length + 1); memset(buffer, 0, length + 1); status = uncompress((Bytef *)buffer, (uLongf *)&length, (const Bytef *)payload, payload_len); }

while ((status == Z_BUF_ERROR) && (factor < maxfactor));

if (status == Z_OK)

{ decompress_status = 1; }

}

I believe the ideal mode would be that all Couchbase-supplied clients will default to using compatible methods for storing and retrieving values. Same compression thresholds, and same compression algorithms, by default. That way all of our products will work with each other.

All Couchbase client libraries should have documentation saying how to be compatible with old memcached clients from that language platform that may use a different algorithm. For example, the PHP client should describe what options to set in order to be able to read values from the pecl-memcached extension. That way, upgrading to the Couchbase library will allow readiing data that was saved from an older version. This should be under an "Compatibility with [the non-Couchbase library]" section, and referenced from the "Ugrade" pages as well.