WordPress / WordPress/WordPress-Coding-Standards

Escaping sniff bug

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Focus: Security Status: Needs investigation Type: Bug
Dominant language
PHP
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Description

Original Issue: https://github.com/Automattic/VIP-Coding-Standards/issues/22


<?php echo MY_CLASS()->get_template_part( 'post/feature-title', $vars ); ?>

reports issue with MY_CLASS and $vars, but should really only for MY_CLASS

Another edge case:

 <?php echo MY_CLASS()->get_template_part( 'post/feature-meta', array( 'obj' => $obj ) ); ?>

Another false positive is being reported on following code:

<?php echo ( $is_mobile ) ? wp_json_encode( 'true' ) : wp_json_encode( 'false' ); ?>

Taking the first example into consideration I can see following:

$ cat test.php
<?php

echo MY_CLASS()->get_template_part( 'post/feature-title', $vars );
$ phpcs --standard=WordPressVIPMinimum ./test.php -s

FILE: /home/wpcom/public_html/test.php
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOUND 2 ERRORS AFFECTING 1 LINE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3 | ERROR | All output should be run through an escaping function (see the Security sections in the WordPress Developer Handbooks), found 'MY_CLASS'. (WordPress.XSS.EscapeOutput.OutputNotEscaped)
 3 | ERROR | All output should be run through an escaping function (see the Security sections in the WordPress Developer Handbooks), found '$vars'. (WordPress.XSS.EscapeOutput.OutputNotEscaped)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Time: 50ms; Memory: 6Mb

To directly answer the question, it's the WordPress.XSS.EscapeOutput.OutputNotEscaped sniff :)


Opening as a reminder to investigate.

Note, that this sniff got moved to WordPress.Security category for WPCS 1.0.0, so the original bug might have been addressed by now.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the three PHP snippets in test.php and reproduce them using phpcs with the WordPressVIPMinimum standard. Inspect the WordPress.XSS.EscapeOutput.OutputNotEscaped sniff under the WordPress.Security category, and verify whether the reported false positives still occur; done means the valid examples are no longer incorrectly reported and coverage prevents regressions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
php
Domain
security, tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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