Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:100547
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: softfail (pb1.pair.com: domain golemon.com does not designate 209.85.220.169 as permitted sender)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: php@golemon.com
In-Reply-To: <c7746903-2e3a-3e86-59c9-63483b244feb@gmx.de>
References: <c7746903-2e3a-3e86-59c9-63483b244feb@gmx.de>
Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2017 17:05:47 +0000
Message-ID: <CAESVnVpUkM_W9xF+0Qt=2M61dGy40gtOehFo=U_F3gd87rmxrQ@mail.gmail.com>
To: "Christoph M. Becker" <cmbecker69@gmx.de>
Cc: "internals@lists.php.net" <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Deprecate and remove case-insensitive constants?
From: pollita@php.net (Sara Golemon)

On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 5:02 AM, Christoph M. Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> wr=
ote:
> Even if these issues could be resolved, I still think allowing both
> case-sensitive and case-insensitive constant identifiers does more harm
> than good.
>
+0.1 to removing case-insensitive constants, though we'd need to
define both "null" and "NULL" (similar for true and false) since
there's little consensus on which version of these constants get used
from project to project.  Also: While deprecating for 7.3 is fine, I'd
favor waiting for 8.0 for full removal.

As to Fran=C3=A7ois' suggestion to make the whole language case-sensitive?
Yeesh, that feels like a much more aggressive movement.  In the case
of constants they very nearly are case-sensitive only since, as you
point out, common practice is to not pass true for that third
parameter, and to prefer `const` over `define` anyway.  Identifiers
are another matter since they're insensitive by default.

In the case of classnames I could almost get on board since
autoloading standards have pushed users naturally in the direction of
respecting case sensitive as a coding standard.  I don't feel as
though that's true of functions or of projects where autoloaders
aren't used (not a small number).

Overall: No.  I'm -1 on making non-constant identifiers
case-sensitive.  At best, I'd perhaps get on board with a
declare(case_sensitivity=3D1); style directive.

-Sara