Modifying OJS classes and PHP/OJS caching

[rmichael]

I'm beginning to modify an OJS installation that is in need of help. Unfortunately, I need to diagnose the production server (until I have time to mirror a development server) with minimal impact , so I'm inserting error_log calls in various places.

However, the changes aren't taking effect immediately. Has PHP (or OJS) cached compiled forms of the classes? I notice cache related directives in config.inc.php, are those related to an OJS specific cache or PHP behaviour or both?

Complicating matters slightly, I don't have the ability to restart the server (apache) itself, but I do have file permissions on (most of) the OJS installation tree, with the exception of cache/_db/*.

Are there files I can simply remove/delete from the OJS tree that will force PHP (or OJS?) to recompile/recache the classes? There only discussion of caching in the Technical Reference is the is one line comment on cache/ in the File Structure section (page 8).

Specifically, I've modified ojs/classes/core/Request.inc.php.

Thanks.

[asmecher]

Hi Richard,

There's nothing in the OJS codebase that would cause a change in a PHP file not to be reflected immediately, and as long as file dates are correct, any PHP caches installed on the server (e.g. Zend Accelerator) should notice that a new file has arrived and recompile it. I'd suggest double-checking that you're changing the right file -- it's easy to get confused, for example, when modifying classes/submission/sectionEditor/SectionEditorSubmissionDAO.inc.php vs. classes/submission/editor/EditorSubmissionDAO.inc.php. If you have a specific question about the code, feel free to ask.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Open Journal Systems Team
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