Removing autoloading would break some functionality that was corrected, however. What is the exact problem?

The idea here is that if the class exists -- i.e., has been or can be autoloaded -- we need to treat it differently so as to ensure that it registers with the bootstrap correctly (which prevents naming collisions). If we do not allow class_exists() to attempt to autoload the class, then we lose this ability.

Is there an actual problem that occurs if autoloading fails to find the class? Or are you simply getting logged notices? You've marked the issue as "critical", but not really indicated what the issue is exactly.

Sorry, yes. When resources come through as stings, say 'frontController', the autoloader tries to load that class, which is not namespaced. If you have $autoloader->setFallbackAutoloader(true);, then it won't find it, obviously, and cause a fatality.

Aha -- so, what I'm hearing is that because the default internal autoloader does not do any exception handling, you're observing fatal errors due to uncaught exceptions. I think I know how to proceed from here -- but the solution is not to stop checking for classes, but to make a slight change to the autoloader so as to check for exceptions.

I've reviewed Zend_Loader_Autoloader, and I see why it behaves differently with suppressNotFoundWarnings enabled versus disabled: in the former case, it runs the try/catch block, while in the latter it does not. This is trivial to correct.

Matthew, the actual issue was caused by this revision: http://framework.zend.com/code/changelog/…

There's actually no bug in 1.8.0 but in the next mini release.

Loading resource plugins should no longer raise an exception on trunk or 1.8 release branch.

Now it crashes right out of the gate:

Warning: Zend_Loader::include(Bootstrap.php) [zend-loader.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/library/Zend/Loader.php on line 83

Warning: Zend_Loader::include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'Bootstrap.php' for inclusion (include_path='/Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/application/../library:/Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/application/../library/Doctrine:/Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/application/library:/Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/application/models:/Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/application/models/generated:/Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/library') in /Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/library/Zend/Loader.php on line 83

string(925) "#0 [internal function]: Zend_Loader::loadClass('Bootstrap')

1 /Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/library/Zend/Loader/Autoloader.php(443): call_user_func(Array, 'Bootstrap')

2 [internal function]: Zend_Loader_Autoloader->_autoload('Bootstrap')

3 /Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/library/Zend/Loader/Autoloader.php(125): call_user_func(Array, 'Bootstrap')

4 [internal function]: Zend_Loader_Autoloader::autoload('Bootstrap')

5 [internal function]: spl_autoload_call('Bootstrap')

6 /Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/library/Zend/Application.php(266): class_exists('Bootstrap')

7 /Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/library/Zend/Application.php(156): Zend_Application->setBootstrap('/Users/Jason/Si...', 'Bootstrap')

8 /Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/library/Zend/Application.php(85): Zend_Application->setOptions(Array)

9 /Users/Jason/Sites/quadrant/htdocs/index.php(45): Zend_Application->__construct('development', '/Users/Jason/Si...')

10 {main}"

This should now be resolved in trunk and the 1.8 release branch. whew!