Upgrading plugins to work with PHP8+/1.5.8+

PHP8 is a major change, and many older plugins will require attention before they can be used without problems. Be sure to verify plugins in a test environment before pushing them to a live store.

Note: depending on the age of the plugin, you may need to do the PHP 7 updates as well.

Array Based Language Files

To avoid duplicate define notices from PHP, Zen Cart 1.5.8 uses Array Based Language Files.

If you need to load a language file that’s not already being loaded by the default language file loading process, see loading a language file.

If your plugin creates its own new language file, you are not required to update it; unique legacy language files will still be loaded. See Language Files - New vs Legacy in 1.5.8.

Turning off substring match language loading

Substring matching language loading is a feature in Zen Cart where when a page’s primary language file is loaded, any other language file that starts with the page name will also be loaded. For example, going to index.php?main_page=video will load language file lang.video.php but also any other language file whose name starts with “video” such as lang.video_success.php.

Due to stricter rules about define uniqueness, you may need to disable this behavior for your plugin - see Substring Matching.

PHP 8.2 and objects

PHP 8.2 introduces a new restriction which deprecates the use of dynamic properties.

This means in a class, you can no longer do something like

   class Foo extends base 
   {
      function __construct() {
        ...
      }
   }

   $f = new Foo(); 
   ...
   if (some-condition) { 
      $f->enabled = true;   // deprecated! 
   }

There are two ways to fix this:

• Change your class to declare all their properties (class member variables) in the class definition. You can see an example of this in includes/modules/order_total/ot_group_pricing.php in how the variables $_check and $code are declared with visibility explicitly in 1.5.8 but not in 1.5.7.

For the example above, it would be

   class Foo extends base 
   {
      public $enabled = false; 
      function __construct() {
        ...
      }
   }

• Change your class to explictly allow dynamic properties. You can see an example of this in admin/includes/classes/object_info.php - the class declaration is preceded by

#[AllowDynamicProperties]

This second method should be used sparingly and only in cases where arbitrary properties are possible (as in objectInfo). If the number of properties is fixed and finite, you should simply explicitly declare them in the class. Doing so will protect you from introducing bugs by spelling the name of a property incorrectly (this was the intention of this PHP change, after all.)

PHP 8.2 objectInfo and plugins

As noted above, PHP 8.2 introduces a new restriction which deprecates the use of dynamic properties.

For core modules in admin, the objectInfo class has been extended to explicitly permit dynamic properties.

Plugin developers using custom tables may extend objectInfo to add properties, or rely on objectInfo’s opt-in to dynamic properties . The former technique is shown in the following example from Email Archive Manager:

  class eam_objectInfo extends objectInfo {
     public 
        $archive_id, 
        $email_to_name,
        $email_to_address,
        $email_from_name,
        $email_from_address,
        $email_subject,
        $email_html,
        $email_text; 
  }

Then, in the code body, instead of

$email = new objectInfo($email_sql->fields);

use

$email = new eam_objectInfo($email_sql->fields);

PHP 8.1 and strftime

PHP 8.1 has deprecated strftime. Change calls to use the new zcDate class.

Before:

   echo strftime('%B');

Now:

   echo $zcDate->output('%B'); 

Or if more arguments are used, the change is:

Before:

    $retVal = strftime(DATE_FORMAT_LONG, mktime($hour, $minute, $second, $month, $day, $year));

Now:

    $retVal = $zcDate->output(DATE_FORMAT_LONG, mktime($hour, $minute, $second, $month, $day, $year));

NB. To use inside a function or another class you will need to add

   global $zcDate;

before you use zcDate for the first time.

PHP 8.1 and null strings passed as parameters

If you get an error like

--> PHP Deprecated: htmlspecialchars(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /admin/customers.php on line 754.

You would change

htmlspecialchars($cInfo->street_address, ENT_COMPAT, CHARSET, true),

to

htmlspecialchars($cInfo->street_address ?? '', ENT_COMPAT, CHARSET, true),

PHP 8.2 and object properties

If you get an error like:

PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Cannot access private property queryFactory::$count_queries in .../includes/classes/sitemapxml.php:735

This line is

 $this->statisticModuleQueries = $db->count_queries;

There are a couple of options:

• It may be appropriate to make the property public. To do this, you would change query_factory.php from:

private $count_queries = 0;

to

public $count_queries = 0;

• It may be appropriate to add a getter instead. Since query_factory.php is a core file, this is the better approach. Change

 $this->statisticModuleQueries = $db->count_queries;

to

 $this->statisticModuleQueries = $db->queryCount(); 

PHP 8.0+ and missing constants

If you get a debug log like this:

[04-Aug-2023 11:50:03 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught Error: Undefined constant "SOME_CONSTANT" in /Users/scott/Sites/gh_demo_200/...

please see missing language constants.

Coding Help:

• PHP Errors, Warnings and Deprecated messages after upgrading
• PHP Idioms
• Release Specific Upgrade Considerations
• Upgrading plugins to work with 1.5.8/PHP 8.0+

… and when all else fails:

• PHP migration guides in the php.net documentation