PHP Hangs When Fed 2.2250738585072011e-308

January 4, 2011

PHP Hangs When Fed 2.2250738585072011e-308 A pretty horrible bug when you assign the number 2.2250738585072011e-308 to a variable PHP will hang on Linux or Windows 32bit builds of PHP. This does affect $_GET and $_POST variables as well and as such could be an exploit in some PHP sites. So the following code will break your PHP for example: $var = 2.2250738585072011e-308; Or if a page is given a GET parameter like page.

A pretty horrible bug when you assign the number 2.2250738585072011e-308 to a variable PHP will hang on Linux or Windows 32bit builds of PHP. This does affect $_GET and $_POST variables as well and as such could be an exploit in some PHP sites.

So the following code will break your PHP for example:

$var = 2.2250738585072011e-308;

Or if a page is given a GET parameter like page.php?param=2.2250738585072011e-308

$var = $_GET['param'] + 1;
//OR
$var = (double)$_GET['param'];

More debate available on http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2066084