"PHP Warning: Class __PHP_Incomplete_Class has no unserializer" when a class that was serialized with a custom handler no longer exists

[MatmaRex]

Description

A warning "PHP Warning: Class __PHP_Incomplete_Class has no unserializer" is emitted when a class that was serialized with a custom handler (instanceof Serializable / 'C' format) no longer exists.

This is unexpected to me, because the real problem is that the class does not exist at all, not that it has no unserializer. There's no warning for that though, the user is expected to check for instances of __PHP_Incomplete_Class.

The following code:

<?php
unserialize('C:3:"obj":23:{s:15:"My private data";}');    

Resulted in this output:

PHP Warning:  Class __PHP_Incomplete_Class has no unserializer in php shell code on line 1

But I expected this output instead:

(no warnings)

PHP Version

PHP 8.3.6

Operating System

No response

[DanielEScherzer]

Cross link https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T388725
Reproducible with https://3v4l.org/T7MVF

[DanielEScherzer]

We could remove the warning for just the incomplete class case:
At

php-src/ext/standard/var_unserializer.re

Lines 773 to 775 in 8622362

	if (ce->unserialize == NULL) {
	zend_error(E_WARNING, "Class %s has no unserializer", ZSTR_VAL(ce->name));
	object_init_ex(rval, ce);

774c774,777
< 		zend_error(E_WARNING, "Class %s has no unserializer", ZSTR_VAL(ce->name));
---
> 		// Skip warning when the class was not found and __PHP_Incomplete_Class is used
> 		if (ce != PHP_IC_ENTRY) {
> 			zend_error(E_WARNING, "Class %s has no unserializer", ZSTR_VAL(ce->name));
> 		}

but I'm not sure if this can target 8.3+ or master, does it count as a bug fix? The error is correct, its just unexpected

[iluuu1994]

Well, just suppressing the warning might not be a great idea. The data originally returned by serialize() is inaccessible.

Warning: Class __PHP_Incomplete_Class has no unserializer in php-wasm run script on line 3
object(__PHP_Incomplete_Class)#1 (1) {
  ["__PHP_Incomplete_Class_Name"]=>
  string(3) "obj"
}

Optimally, we'd store it as a property. But then again, Serializable has been deprecated since 8.1, so maybe it's best to just keep it this way until it is removed in 9.0.

[iluuu1994]

If you would like to see this fixed, I think this warrants a discussion on the mailing list. I don't think there's a convincing reason to fix this now, given serialize() is on its last leg, and this has been very long standing behavior (https://3v4l.org/T7MVF, since 5.1).

[MatmaRex]

That's fair. I think it's reasonable to leave this unchanged for compatibility reasons, and consider it a known issue with serialize/unserialize. I'm happy with just having filed the bug about it, so that it will be easier to understand for others running into it.

[iluuu1994]

Thanks for your feedback. Let's close this then, as the issue will resolve in PHP 9.0.