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Maniphest T29562

Make $wgVersion a constant
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Author: theevilipaddress

Description:
Currently, $wgVersion is global variable from DefaultSettings.php, which means that it's easily possible for people to modify the variable in LocalSettings.php. I don't know if anyone ever did it, but if someone did it, this could break quite a lot of things. Version checks with version_compare() might be inaccurate, leading to certain functions/classes not to load or the information on Special:Version or {{VERSION}} give wrong information about the used software. Also, I could imagine people believing they could "update" MediaWiki by modifying $wgVersion.

Since there doesn't appear to be a need to modify $wgVersion, neither by the MediaWiki core, extensions or the site users, it could probably just as easily become a constant, maybe MW_VERSION, and then be used like that. This also has the nice side effect of getting rid of another global, which appear to be unloved within MediaWiki developers (IMO for good reasons).

Version: 1.18.x
Severity: enhancement

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Reference
bz27562

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StatusSubtypeAssignedTask
 OpenNoneT11968 Reduce use of global and public variables
 DuplicateNoneT29562 Make $wgVersion a constant

Event Timeline

• bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Lowest.Nov 21 2014, 11:24 PM
• bzimport added a project: MediaWiki-General.
• bzimport set Reference to bz27562.
• bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).
• bzimport created this task.Feb 19 2011, 3:38 PM
MaxSem added a comment.Feb 19 2011, 3:41 PM

This is PHP, everything can be screwed up by playing loose with globals. I don't see why $wgVersion is special.

• demon added a comment.Feb 19 2011, 6:08 PM

Replacing a global scoped variable with a global scoped define doesn't really change anything other than making it impossible for users to change.

And there is some valid reasons to change it: $wgVersion = '1.17wmf1'; ...etc etc.

In general, I think changing it would break more stuff than it would fix, so I'm gonna go ahead and WONTFIX this.

DannyS712 mentioned this in T249995: Create #mediawiki-global-scope.Apr 11 2020, 11:21 AM
Restricted Application added a subscriber: Liuxinyu970226. · View Herald TranscriptApr 20 2020, 10:37 PM
Pppery closed this task as a duplicate of T212738: Deprecate $wgVersion and move to a constant.Apr 20 2020, 10:38 PM
Restricted Application removed a subscriber: Liuxinyu970226. · View Herald TranscriptApr 20 2020, 10:38 PM
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