Details
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Type:
Bug
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Status:
Closed
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Priority:
Blocker
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Resolution: Fixed
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Affects Version/s: 1.9.9, 2.1.4, 2.2.1, 2.3
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Component/s: Libraries
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Testing Instructions:
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Difficulty:Easy
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Affected Branches:MOODLE_19_STABLE, MOODLE_21_STABLE, MOODLE_22_STABLE, MOODLE_23_STABLE
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Fixed Branches:MOODLE_21_STABLE, MOODLE_22_STABLE
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Pull from Repository:
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Pull Master Branch:wip-mdl-22896
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Pull Master Diff URL:
Description
Greetings.. I believe I've found and fixed a bug in the html2text library.
In /lib/html2text.php...
---------------------------
478 // Remove unknown/unhandled entities (this cannot be done in search-and-replace block)
479 $text = preg_replace('/&[^&;]+;/i', '', $text);
---------------------------
That regular expression is too greedy... it matches any sequence of characters that starts with an ampersand and ends with a semicolon.
We've had numerous reports from users that huge chunks of forum posts are missing from the plain-text emails they receive by subscription.
The problem occurs when someone happens to include an ampersand in their text, and also a semicolon somewhere. Anything between those two characters is filtered out.
Here's an example...
Gin & Tonic
- 2oz gin;
- 5oz tonic water;
- 5 cubes of ice;
- 1 lime wedge.
if you ran that through html2text, it would output this..
Gin
- 5oz tonic water;
- 5 cubes of ice;
- 1 lime wedge.
The simple fix I am testing now is this:
479 $text = preg_replace('/&[^&;\s]+;/i', '', $text);
The additional \s makes sure the match stops on whitespace.
Best regards,
-Garret
Issue Links
Activity
Hi Garret
Would this also affect the display of a hyperlink in the email?
We have a forum post like this
"As of this week (Friday 30 July 2010), the Friday tutorials will be held in Computing Laboratory 6 (R G.18)."
here is the html as the words 'Computing Lab 6' and 'RG.18' are hyperlinks to maps on the website
"As of this week (Friday 30 July 2010), the Friday tutorials will be held in <strong><a href="http://www.scms.waikato.ac.nz/genquery.php?linklevel=2&linklist=SCMS_Rightbar&linkname=Computer_Laboratories&linktype=report&listby=Lab_Title&lwhere=unique_record_id=10&children=">Computing Laboratory 6</a></strong> (<a href="http://www.waikato.ac.nz/contacts/map/?term=R">R G.18</a>
."
A user is reporting that his plain text email output is:
"As of this week (Friday 30 July 2010), the Friday tutorials will be held in ()."
Well,
I wish I said it every time
you do the things you do.
You always lend a helping hand,
and I'm filled with gratitude.You are strong and generous
for each and everyone one of us.
I am eternally grateful,
I cannot say thanks enough.
Sorry for the (un)cool bit above, lol. Closing this as fixed. Ciao 
I also reported this to the Roundcube Webmail developers (they are the upstream maintainer of html2text.php)...
They very quickly patched the bug this way:
479 $text = preg_replace('/&#?[a-z0-9]
{2,7};/i', '', $text);
http://trac.roundcube.net/changeset/3777
-Garret