[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #33929: Wrong data type for several variables holding a wpdb query result

[WordPress Trac]

#33929: Wrong data type for several variables holding a wpdb query result
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 Reporter:  tfrommen      |       Owner:  boonebgorges
     Type:  defect (bug)  |      Status:  assigned
 Priority:  normal        |   Milestone:  Future Release
Component:  General       |     Version:
 Severity:  normal        |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch     |     Focuses:
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Changes (by boonebgorges):

 * milestone:  4.4 => Future Release


Comment:

 tfrommen - Thanks for the patch. Some of these changes look more dangerous
 than others. For example, `count_user_posts()` will currently return `'0'`
 when zero records are found and `null` when there's an error. It's not too
 hard to imagine someone doing a strict check on the return value in order
 to test whether an error occurred. So this is a case where the logic
 should probably be something like:

 {{{
 $count = $wpdb->get_var( ... );
 if ( ! is_null( $count ) ) {
     $count = intval( $count );
 }
 }}}

 Even this has the potential to break a plugin that checks `if ( `'0'` ===
 count_user_posts( ... ) )`, which again, is not that unreasonable given
 the fact that `null` is semantically different in this case.

 I'm not opposed to making these kinds of changes in general, but I'm only
 comfortable handling them individually, with some thought given to the
 possibility of breakage in each case. In some cases, this might involve
 searching the plugin repo etc for potentially problematic use cases.
 Ideally, we'd also have unit tests for any change :-D

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/33929#comment:3>
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