[Isis-users] Scrambled web pages for some ABCD utilities on Ubuntu 16

[De Smet Egbert]

Hi,

your observations on 'short_open_tag' are quite correct. However in other modules of ABCD (iAH, Site, Secs-Web) still also quite some scripts would need to be changed as they originate from before the depreciation of "<?".
In the Windows version, which comes with its own PHP-configuration (which we cannot do as easily for Linux) the short_open_tag is put to 'on' by default, so the problem won't be there.

If someone is volunteering to do this small change for the hundreds of scripts ABCD uses, we would be welcoming her/him very much. 
For the time being the simple solution is to switch 'on' short_open_tag in php.ini.

Egbert de Smet
Universiteit Antwerpen
________________________________________
From: isis-users [isis-users-bounces+egbert.desmet=ua.ac.be at iccisis.org] on behalf of Freek Heite [f.heite at hccnet.nl]
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2016 12:36 AM
To: isis-users at iccisis.org
Subject: Re: [Isis-users] Scrambled web pages for some ABCD utilities on        Ubuntu 16

To answer my own question:
In file /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini change "short_open_tag = Off" to "short_open_tag = On" and restart Apache.
Note that short_open_tag is mentioned twice in php.ini. The first occurrence is just a comment, I changed the second occurrence.
This solved my problem.

Background: a few PHP-scripts in ABCD are using the obsolete "<?" to start off a PHP script, instead of the more modern "<?php".
Since PHP version 5.4 the short "<?" is disabled by default, in php.ini.

Not being a PHP programmer, I won't comment on whether or not the old-style "<?" tags in ABCD could/should be changed.

Regards,
Freek Heite.

-----Original Message-----
From: Freek Heite [mailto:f.heite at hccnet.nl]
Sent: 12 October, 2016 23:13
To: 'isis-users at iccisis.org'
Subject: Scrambled web pages for some ABCD utilities on Ubuntu 16

Our current ABCD server (ABCD 1.4, Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS, Apache 2.2.22 and PHP 5.3.10) is running without any problems, but Ubuntu 12 is nearing the end of its support.

On a test server, I've installed the latest Ubuntu, 16.04.1 LTS (which also brings Apache 2.4.18 and PHP 7.0.8).
Then, I've put ABCD onto this test machine, by copying all ABCD stuff in /var/opt/ABCD and in /opt/ABCD) over from the production machine.
Finally, I added the ABCD settings to the Apache config.

On the new server, most of the ABCD web pages are working just fine, but a few are not:
- the lower part of the web pages for "Import TXT file" and "Export TXT file" is just blank, the "new conversion table" part doesn't appear
- on the web pages for "global changes", "Export ISO file" and "Import ISO file", fragments of what looks to me like PHP source code are scrambling
(overlaying) the graphical contents of the web pages. It's most visible on the page "Import ISO file", making the page unusable, please see the attachment.

Upgrading the ABCD software in the "central" directory to ABCD 1.5.1 doesn't help.
My web browser is Firefox on this same test server, switching to Chromium doesn't help either.

Any thoughts about what might be wrong?

Regards,
Freek Heite.

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