XPathQueryFailureDereferenced

warning native on by default

Group: Probable bugs

Check the XPath query result before accessing its nodes.

Example

<?php
function f(DOMXPath $x, $expr) { $nodes=$x->query($expr); echo $nodes->length; }

Reported:

• line 2: Check the XPath query result before accessing its nodes.

Detection

• DOMXPath query result directly or via local binding is dereferenced as DOMNodeList without a dominating guard excluding false. Guards may throw, return, or enter a proven nonfalse branch. Passing to unknown callees is not itself a finding.
• D1a. The result is either false or a node list, so each of these tests on the bound variable separates the two: a strict or loose comparison with the false constant (either operand order), plain truthiness ($nodes, !$nodes), and instanceof any class. A test may also be applied to the assignment that binds the variable, as in ($nodes = $x->query($e)) === false. Tests combine through !, && and || with their usual meaning: a conjunction holding proves each operand held, a disjunction failing proves each operand failed.
• A test guards the dereference when its outcome is already decided on every path to it: the dereference sits in the matching branch of an if / elseif / else chain (an earlier condition of the chain having failed counts), in the matching arm of a full ternary, in the right operand of && / || whose left operand decides it, or after an earlier statement of the same or an enclosing statement list that is an if without alternatives whose body always leaves the path when the result may be false. Any number of statements may separate that exit from the dereference.
• The tested variable must hold the same reaching query result as the dereferenced one; a reassignment or invalidation between test and dereference discards the guard.
• Resolve builtin functions, extension classes, constants and method receivers, including aliases and supported named arguments. Inspect reachable operations in one lexical scope with bounded local flow.
• Emit one finding per violating operation. Never infer policy from names or comments. When the proof is inconclusive, nothing is reported.

Exceptions (no report)

• Exclude shadowed or unresolved symbols, incomplete code, unknown required constants, ambiguous receiver identity and unsupported versions. Reassignment, escaping aliases, and unknown calls invalidate dependent flow facts.
• A dereference in the failure branch of a test (if (!$nodes) { $nodes->length; }), in the short ternary form, or behind a test of another value stays reported. The and / or keywords and tests other than those in D1a are not recognized as guards.
• Both @custos-ignore XPathQueryFailureDereferenced and @noinspection XPathQueryFailureDereferenced suppress this native rule.
• A value the shared flow analysis proves is not the failure value at the use is never reported, whatever form the proof takes: a test in an enclosing branch, loop condition or short-circuit operand, an early exit, a statement that leaves on the failing outcome ($v !== false or exit;, $v or throw …;, $v ?: throw …;), a failing branch that ends in a call that never returns (a callee declared never, or a function or a final or private method every path of which throws or exits), a test stored in a boolean and tested later while neither the boolean nor the tested variable has been written, and, on PHP 8.0 and later outside any try with a catch, a builtin call that returned after receiving the value for a parameter that only accepts arrays, objects or callables: such a call throws a TypeError for false. A switch (true) case is read like the condition of an if/elseif chain; in a switch on the variable itself with constant labels, the cases after a false or null label and the default hold a value that is neither, as does a true case. Positions PHP may skip prove nothing: the right side of ??=, the arguments of a null-safe call and anything chained after ?->. A null-safe call to a never-returning method does not end the path, and f(...) creates a closure without calling f. An arm of match (true) is read like a switch (true) case; an arm that throws, exits or calls a function that never returns takes no part in what holds after the match. | and & between two tests are read like || and && for the outcome that fixes both operands (a false |, a true &), and a strict in_array($v, [...], true) over literals that include neither false nor null excludes both where it holds. goto jumps are followed, including a jump out of a try or catch block, which runs the finally blocks it leaves on its way. Where a goto label is written before the use, and after the place where its scope first names the checked variable, a variable that can hold the same value, or code that may write any variable (extract, compact, get_defined_vars, parse_str given one argument, a variable variable, $GLOBALS, eval, an included file), a jump can land between a guard and the use: only what the flow analysis establishes counts there, and a guard recognized by where it is written proves nothing. Two variables can hold the same value when one is written from the other by a plain assignment, an assignment by reference or ??=, when a foreach takes one out of the other, or through a chain of those; in the value assigned, the receiver and the arguments of a call, the operands of an operator other than ??, the variables a string embeds and an element key do not count, and a statement that only reads (echo $prefix . $parts['host'];) ties nothing. A parameter is named from the start of the function, and a checked expression that reads $this or no variable counts every label before it. In a scope the flow analysis does not follow (one that evaluates or includes code, which may write any variable) a guarded use after such a label is therefore reported. A generator is followed: while it is suspended at a yield, the code that consumes it may write only what an unknown call may write, and, when the generator returns by reference, the variable it yields. A label written before all of that, such as a retry: label ahead of the try that produces and checks the value, changes nothing, whatever else the function reads beside the checked value; at file level every label written before the use counts. What was established of a static local holds until the next call, or code that runs without a call being written (an object converted to text, a magic property or offset access, the destructor of an object a variable held when it is given another value), that may enter the function again and assign the variable. A call of PHP's own counts as such when it may run code of the project: it is given a callback other than the name of a PHP function that only computes on text and numbers and raises no warning whatever text it is given (a closed list: strlen, trim, intval and the like, not hexdec, abs or chr, which warn about text that is no number), an object it may convert, a class name it loads (method_exists($name, 'm'), is_callable('A::b'), defined('A::B'), class_alias($name, 'B'), new ReflectionClass($name), $arrayObject->setIteratorClass($name)), a class to construct ($statement->fetchObject('Row')) or a filter that one of PHP's own FILTER_… constants does not name, which may be the one that calls back, or it runs what was registered earlier (an error, session or output-buffer handler, the callbacks of a cURL transfer or an XML parser, an iterator wrapped in another, a filter added to a stream). A warning that a PHP function raises by itself when called directly (hex2bin given an odd number of digits, a file that cannot be read) is not counted, although the error handler of the project receives it. This limits every guard form of this specification, not only the ones the flow analysis reads.

Fix

None. A safe repair requires choosing values, error handling, or application behavior.

PHP versions

Apply throughout PHP 5.3–8.5 only where the extension API and syntax exist. Do not flag API unavailability through this rule. Legacy DOM classes are the initial target; modern Dom namespace classes require independently established matching contracts.

Options

None. Use normal rule configuration to enable or disable the inspection.

Configure

In custos.json:

{
  "rules": {
    "XPathQueryFailureDereferenced": {
      "enabled": false
    }
  }
}

Suppress

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

// @custos-ignore XPathQueryFailureDereferenced