php / php/php-src

Assertion failure when freeing rvalue of ASSIGN_OBJ with typed refs and __toString()

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#20,316 0 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@arnaud-lb is already working on this.

Since Oct 28, 2025.

Bug Status: Needs Triage
Dominant language
C
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Description

Description

The following code:

<?php

class C {
    public string $a = '';
    public $b;
    function __toString() {
        global $c; // turns rvalue into a ref
        return '';
    }
}

$c = new C;
$c->b = &$c->a;
$c->b = $c;

Resulted in this output:

zend_execute.c:4093: i_zval_ptr_dtor_noref: Assertion `zval_get_type(&(*(zval_ptr))) != 10' failed.

Root cause is that we call zend_assign_to_variable_ex() / zend_assign_to_typed_ref_ex() with value_type=IS_TMP_VAR, when value may be a CV slot here: https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/02c67b47f728f915e6015c2fd52c6e1f7a27b172/Zend/zend_object_handlers.c#L875-L876

Therefore the slot may have been modified when reaching this call: https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/02c67b47f728f915e6015c2fd52c6e1f7a27b172/Zend/zend_execute.c#L3665

With the code above, the assertion fails because orig_value is now a ref.

PHP Version
PHP 8.3
Operating System

No response

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