PHP mbstring extension required

[orlitzky]

The composer.json file mentions only >=php-5.2, but the use of mb_convert_encoding in e.g. libs/plugins/modifier.escape.php requires the mbstring extension. This does actually cause a problem at runtime for me, and it goes away when PHP is recompiled.

[uwetews]

Smarty does use mbstring functions when Smarty::$_MBSTRING is true.
It's value was determined by function_exists('mb_split') which was a bad idea as mb_split could be call able also when mbstring functions are not present but could be made available as overloaded version by php.ini mbstring.func_overload setting.

The fix has been commited 47faa63

[orlitzky]

I accidentally commented on the commit 47faa63 yesterday rather than here; sorry. I have verified my suspicion using the following steps:

1. Install smarty from git
2. Install PHP with the mbstring extension
3. Visit your site, on a page that uses escaping
4. A cached template is stored in $smarty_dir/templates_c that makes use of mb_convert_encoding.
5. Reinstall PHP, this time without mbstring
6. Restart apache
7. Visit the same page
8. 500 error, missing mb_* functions.

[uwetews]

Smarty does generate different compiled templates if PHP has mbstring extensions or not.
If you change your environvent like exchanging PHP you should delete the compiled and cached template files.

What you have done is not the normal use case.

I do not think that this is a shortcomming or bug of Smarty,

[orlitzky]

I wasn't suggesting that. I just wanted to point out for the search engines that the problem isn't what I initially reported.

Thanks again for your help!