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Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2018 10:35:34 +0000
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To: Michael Morris <tendoaki@gmail.com>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC][DISCUSSION] Strong Typing Syntax
From: danack@basereality.com (Dan Ackroyd)

On 5 January 2018 at 02:01, Michael Morris <tendoaki@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> what if the underlying zval wasn=E2=80=99t a zval but a separate
> class specific to the data type but implementing the same interface as
> zval?

I believe the only sensible answer to that is 'mu', as that question
is based on misunderstanding.

The internals of the PHP engine is C, and zvals are structs not
classes, and so there is no interface. In userland classes are also
zvals.  http://www.phpinternalsbook.com/php7/internal_types/zvals/basic_str=
ucture.html

Also, I think people who try to guess at how to make changes to the
engine, are doing a small disservice to people who have already tried
to implement this. The current contributors are a bunch of clever
people, and if there was an obvious way to implement it, they would
have implemented it already. It's not a case that there is going to be
an easy solution that has been overlooked, that someone cleverer is
going to be able to guess at.

cheers
Dan
Ack