How can I emulate register_globals in PHP 5.4 or newer?

From the PHP manual, it says that:

This feature has been DEPRECATED as of PHP 5.3.0 and REMOVED as of PHP 5.4.0.

However, a Google search revealed this method on Ubuntu Forums:

Nope, it's finally gone for good. Whatever site is still using globals had, what, half-a-dozen years or more now to fix the code?

The quickest solution is to create the globals from scratch by running this code at the beginning of the app:

Code:

foreach ($_REQUEST as $key=>$val) {
    ${$key}=$val;
}

You have to be careful that any variable created this way isn't already defined in the remainder of the script.

You can force this code to be run ahead of every page on the site by using the auto_prepend_file directive in an .htaccess file.

I'd strongly recommend looking at the code that requires register_globals and changing it so that it works properly with it being disabled.

You can emulate register_globals by using extract in global scope:

extract($_REQUEST);

Or put it to independent function using global and variable variables

function globaling()
{
    foreach ($_REQUEST as $key => $val)
    {
        global ${$key};
        ${$key} = $val;
    }
}

If you have a released application and do not want to change anything in it, you can create globals.php file with

<?php
extract($_REQUEST);

then add auto_prepend_file directive to .htaccess (or in php.ini)

php_value auto_prepend_file ./globals.php

After this the code will be run on every call, and the application will work as though the old setting was in effect.

Just in case it may be helpful, this is the code suggested on php.net to emulate register_globals On:

<?php
// Emulate register_globals on
if (!ini_get('register_globals')) {
    $superglobals = array($_SERVER, $_ENV,
        $_FILES, $_COOKIE, $_POST, $_GET);
    if (isset($_SESSION)) {
        array_unshift($superglobals, $_SESSION);
    }
    foreach ($superglobals as $superglobal) {
        extract($superglobal, EXTR_SKIP);
    }
}

Source: http://php.net/manual/en/faq.misc.php#faq.misc.registerglobals