UnlinkFailureReportedAsSuccess

warning native on by default

Group: Probable bugs

Identify discarded unlink call immediately followed by unconditional return true in the same function.

Detection

• Report discarded unlink call immediately followed by unconditional return true in the same function.
• Resolve builtin functions, classes, constants and methods, including imports and supported named arguments. Follow only bounded local facts within one lexical scope. Receiver and argument provenance must establish the specific API contract; variable names and comments never prove intent.
• Report one finding per violating operation. A reachable path, unchanged value identity and applicable API behavior are required. Intervening mutation, unknown calls involving tracked values, escaped aliases or exhausted analysis budgets invalidate proof.

Exceptions (no report)

• Exclude unresolved required symbols, user-defined lookalikes, incomplete syntax, unknown required values and unsupported versions.
• Both @custos-ignore UnlinkFailureReportedAsSuccess and @noinspection UnlinkFailureReportedAsSuccess suppress this native rule.
• A file the function made itself with tempnam() is not reported: when the path given to unlink holds, as its only local value, the result of a tempnam() call, the deletion cleans up after the function's own work, and the returned success is that of this work, not of the deletion. Once the variable is reassigned to another path, the deletion is reported again.

Fix

None. A repair requires a semantic decision or application error-handling policy.

PHP versions

Available in PHP 5.3–8.5 where the referenced API exists. Do not apply extension contracts when the resolved API is unavailable. Gate syntax and version-specific behavior to the configured target.

Configure

In custos.json:

{
  "rules": {
    "UnlinkFailureReportedAsSuccess": {
      "enabled": false
    }
  }
}

Suppress

Before the statement or declaration (or the first statement of the file):

// @custos-ignore UnlinkFailureReportedAsSuccess