$_REQUEST superarray not initialized in $GLOBALS array

Question

PROBLEM

So, I have this function to retrieve and proceed data from $_REQUEST, $_POST, $_GET or $_COOKIE arrays. I know which array to use only from function call. Simplified ex:

function gg( $name, $type="_REQUEST" ) {
    return isset( $GLOBALS[$type][$name] ) ? $GLOBALS[$type][$name] : false;
}

And it works perfectly for calls like:

gg('var', '_GET');
gg('var2', '_POST');

But fails dramatically for:

gg('var');
// or
gg('var', '_REQUEST');

I managed to simplify this problem thou to 2 lines:

print_r( $GLOBALS['_REQUEST'] ); // this line returns nothing...
print_r( $_REQUEST ); // ...UNLESS this line is present anywhere in the code

Now, my obvious question is: Is there any necessity to initialize this $_REQUEST array to be present in $GLOBALS?

additional info:

php: 5.3.3-7
apache: 2.2.16

also I'm running on CGI/FastCGI

EDIT & SOLUTION

1

As found here the easiest solution would be to edit php.ini and change there value of auto_globals_jit from On to Off.

auto_globals_jit Off

2

Instead of this you can use ini_set() inside of your source file, however it didn't work for me...

ini_set("auto_globals_jit", "Off");

3

Yet another solution is to use $GLOBALS array to everything except $_REQUEST and for $_REQUEST requests call directly to $_REQUEST array :D

if($type == "REQUEST") return $_REQUEST[$name];
else return ${"_".$type}[$name]; // or $GLOBALS["_".$type][$name] if previous won't work

Answer 1

Couldn't replicate this on my setup so it could possibly be CGI issue? As a workaround you could do something like this...

function gg( $name, $type="_REQUEST" ) {
    return isset( ${$type}[$name] ) ? ${$type}[$name] : false;
}

Might be of interest:

As of PHP 5.4 $GLOBALS is now initialized just-in-time. This means there now is an advantage to not use the $GLOBALS variable as you can avoid the overhead of initializing it. http://www.php.net/manual/en/reserved.variables.globals.php

Update. See Post:

$_REQUEST not created when using variable variables?

Answer 2

Just a tip:

function gg( $name, $type="_REQUEST" ) {
  if($type=="_REQUEST")return $GLOBALS[$name];
  return isset( $GLOBALS[$type][$name] ) ? $GLOBALS[$type][$name] : false;
}

Once I have made a function like yours:

    function get_data($name)
    {
        if(isset($_GET[$name]))return $_GET[$name];
        if(isset($_POST[$name]))return $_POST[$name];
    }

Answer 3

$_REQUEST is already a superglobal "which means they are available in all scopes throughout a script. There is no need to do global $variable; to access them within functions or methods."

function gg( $name, $type="_REQUEST" ) {
  switch ($type) {
  case '_REQUEST':
    return $_REQUEST[$name];
    break;
  case 'GLOBALS':
    return $_GLOBALS[$name];
    break;
  //  etc...
  default
    return false;
}