PHP concatenation delete some characters, it's crazzy ! PHP internal bug? - php

Question

I'm developing using PHP since several years now.
But today I blocked on a problem I cannot explain, it's a very simple concatenation but it's result is bad (missing characters at the end of resulting string);
Here is the code:
$select = $this -> phpSqlCreator -> processSELECT2($this -> phpSqlParser -> parsed);
$from = $this -> phpSqlCreator -> processFROM2($this -> phpSqlParser -> parsed['FROM']);
$where = $this -> whereString;
$sql = $select . ' ' . $from . ' ' . $where;
When I debug this code here is what I see.
The $select variable contains this string :
SELECT DISTINCT t.id as "t.id",t.creation_date as "t.creation_date",t.default_language_code as
"t.default_language_code",t.name as "t.name",t.description as "t.description",t.document_store_path as
"t.document_store_path",t.type as "t.type",t.left_value as "t.left_value",t.right_value as "t.right_value",t.event_id as
"t.event_id",t.parent_id as "t.parent_id",t2.id as "t2.id",t2.creation_date as
"t2.creation_date",t2.default_language_code as "t2.default_language_code",t2.name as "t2.name",t2.description
as "t2.description",t2.document_store_path as "t2.document_store_path",t2.type as "t2.type",t2.left_value as
"t2.left_value",t2.right_value as "t2.right_value",t2.event_id as "t2.event_id",t2.parent_id as "t2.parent_id"
Then, the $from variable contains this string :
FROM team t , (SELECT t.* FROM team t LEFT JOIN team_role tr ON (t.id = tr.team_id) WHERE
tr.participant_id = ? UNION SELECT t.* FROM team t LEFT JOIN team_role tr ON (t.id = tr.team_id) LEFT JOIN
unit_role ur ON (tr.unit_id = ur.unit_id) WHERE ur.participant_id = ?) as dt LEFT JOIN team t2 ON ("t.parent_id" = t2.id)
The $where variable contains :
WHERE t.left_value < dt.left_value and t.right_value > dt.right_value and t.event_id = dt.event_id
The $sql variable contains :
SELECT DISTINCT t.id as "t.id",t.creation_date as "t.creation_date",t.default_language_code as
"t.default_language_code",t.name as "t.name",t.description as "t.description",t.document_store_path as
"t.document_store_path",t.type as "t.type",t.left_value as "t.left_value",t.right_value as "t.right_value",t.event_id as
"t.event_id",t.parent_id as "t.parent_id",t2.id as "t2.id",t2.creation_date as
"t2.creation_date",t2.default_language_code as "t2.default_language_code",t2.name as "t2.name",t2.description
as "t2.description",t2.document_store_path as "t2.document_store_path",t2.type as "t2.type",t2.left_value as
"t2.left_value",t2.right_value as "t2.right_value",t2.event_id as "t2.event_id",t2.parent_id as "t2.parent_id" FROM
team t , (SELECT t.* FROM team t LEFT JOIN team_role tr ON (t.id = tr.team_id) WHERE tr.participant_id = ?
UNION SELECT t.* FROM team t LEFT JOIN team_role tr ON (t.id = tr.team_id) LEFT JOIN unit_role ur ON
(tr.unit_id = ur.unit_id) WHERE ur.participant_id = ?) as dt LEFT JOIN team t2 ON (
The concatenation is very simple but does not work, the end of the $from string variable is missing and the full content of the $where string variable is also missing. I do not understand because the code is very simple.
Furthermore, this peace of code is thorougly executed by a set of automatic unit tests. It's very strange because when the code is executed using PHPUnit (so PHP Cli) the result of the concatenation is good (all our tests are successful).
This concatenation problem is only encountered when the code is executed inside our Web application (standard Apache 2.2.22 + PHP 5.3.13 settings on a Windows 8 machine).
Do you know what could cause this very strange problem? A PHP Setting? An PHP bug with the 5.3.13 version of PHP? Strange characters I do not see in the strings when I'm debugging? Something obvious I didn't see because I'm too tired tonight?

Answer 1

Obviously $sql is operating with a limit of 1024 characters. Either some program is storing something erroneously at the next address, or the $sql variable has a size limitation set somewhere.
From what I can see, in php , a string can be as large as 2GB. There is a memory_limit directive in the php.ini configuration file, but I can't imagine that you have that set to 1024 bytes (1K)

Answer 2

Hi zipzip and thanks for your response.
I finally found that the concatenation was good and that it was my IDE Eclipse which didn't show all the characters into my string.
More info can be found here : http://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php/m/492856/
So my problem wasn't a problem.
Thanks a lot.
Baptiste