Bug in CF9: values for unique struct keys referenced and overwritten by other keys

coldfusion

Solution

UPDATE: HOTFIX RELEASED: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/825/cpsid_82547.html

I think yes, this is a bug, but here's an emergency workaround:

<cfset a = createObject("java", "java.util.HashMap").init()>
<cfset structInsert(a, "AO", "foo") />

<cfset b = createObject("java", "java.util.HashMap").init()>
<cfset structInsert(b,"AO", "foo") />
<cfset structInsert(b,"B0", "bar") />

<cfoutput>
The following should throw an error. Instead both keys refer to the same value.
<br />Struct a: <cfdump var="#a#" />
<br />a.AO: #a.AO#
<br />a.B0: #a.B0#
<hr />

The following should show a struct with 2 distinct keys and values. Instead it contains a single key, "AO", with a value of "bar".
<br />Struct b: <cfdump var="#b#" />
</cfoutput>

Since a struct is a HashMap, you can still use all the struct functions in CF.

Meanwhile, please file the bug at: http://cfbugs.adobe.com/cfbugreport/flexbugui/cfbugtracker/main.html

Problem

We've run into a serious issue with CF9 wherein values for certain struct keys can be referenced by other keys, despite those other keys never being set. See the following examples: Edit: Looks like it isn't just something our servers ate. This is Adobe bug-track ticket 81884: http://cfbugs.adobe.com/cfbugreport/flexbugui/cfbugtracker/main.html#bugId=81884. Edit: As has been pointed out, Adobe put out the fix: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/825/cpsid_82547.html The hotfix summary notes that they were comparing the hash values of variable names instead of the literal value, for speed. I don't know how that would speed anything up, but the chance for name collisions (especially on shorter names) should have been obvious. At least they were fairly quick to correct. ``` <cfset a = { AO = "foo" } /> <cfset b = { AO = "foo", B0 = "bar" } /> <cfoutput> The following should throw an error. Instead both keys refer to the same value. <br />Struct a: <cfdump var="#a#" /> <br />a.AO: #a.AO# <br />a.B0: #a.B0# <hr /> The following should show a struct with 2 distinct keys and values. Instead it contains a single key, "AO", with a value of "bar". <br />Struct b: <cfdump var="#b#" /> ``` This is obviously a complete show-stopper for us. I'd be curious to know if anyone has encountered this or can reproduce this in their environment. For us, it happens 100% of the time on Apache/CF9 running on Linux, both RH4 and RH5. We're using the default JRun install on Java 1.6.0_14. To see the extent of the problem, we ran a quick loop to find other naming sequences that are affected and found hundreds of matches for 2 letter key names. A similar loop found more conflicts in 3 letter names. ``` <cfoutput>Testing a range of affected key combinations. This found hundreds of cases on our platform. Aborting after 50 here.</cfoutput> <cfscript> teststring = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"; stringlen = len(teststring); matchesfound = 0; matches = ""; for (i1 = 1; i1 <= stringlen; i1++) { symbol1 = mid(teststring, i1, 1); for (i2 = 1; i2 <= stringlen; i2++) { teststruct = structnew(); symbol2 = mid(teststring, i2, 1); symbolwhole = symbol1 & symbol2; teststruct[ symbolwhole ] = "a string"; for (q1 = 1; q1 <= stringlen; q1++) { innersymbol1 = mid(teststring, q1, 1); for (q2 = 1; q2 <= stringlen; q2++) { innersymbol2 = mid(teststring, q2, 1); innersymbolwhole = innersymbol1 & innersymbol2; if ((i1 != q1 || i2 != q2) && structkeyexists(teststruct, innersymbolwhole)) { // another affected pair of keys! writeoutput ("<br />#symbolwhole# = #innersymbolwhole#"); if (matchesfound++ > 50) { // we've seen enough abort; } } } } } } </cfscript> ``` And edit again: This doesn't just affect struct keys but names in the variables scope as well. At least the variables scope has the presence of mind to throw an error, "can't load a null": ``` <cfset test_b0 = "foo" /> <cfset test_ao = "bar" /> <cfoutput> test_b0: #test_b0# <br />test_ao: #test_ao# </cfoutput> ```

Original source