Newsgroups: php.internals Path: news.php.net Xref: news.php.net php.internals:106072 Return-Path: Delivered-To: mailing list internals@lists.php.net Received: (qmail 58120 invoked from network); 26 Jun 2019 14:02:25 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mint.phcomp.co.uk) (78.32.209.33) by pb1.pair.com with SMTP; 26 Jun 2019 14:02:25 -0000 Received: from addw by mint.phcomp.co.uk with local (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1hg5wt-0005aT-3Q for internals@lists.php.net; Wed, 26 Jun 2019 12:18:47 +0100 Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2019 12:18:47 +0100 To: internals@lists.php.net Message-ID: <20190626111846.GB16895@phcomp.co.uk> Mail-Followup-To: internals@lists.php.net References: <6D1026FF-ECF1-4604-91A8-D290D37CC238@cschneid.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Organization: Parliament Hill Computers Ltd User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-12-10) Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Strict operators directive From: addw@phcomp.co.uk (Alain D D Williams) On Wed, Jun 26, 2019 at 12:00:18PM +0100, Rowan Collins wrote: > Perl is a notable contrast: the types of operands are deduced based on the > operator, but there are different operators to force them to different > types. So `23 < 4` and `"23" < "4"` are both numeric comparisons, so return > false; but `23 lt 4` and `"23" lt "4"` do string comparisons, and return > true. That way the user's intent is clear, but you don't have to manually > cast values or remember how different combinations will be interpreted. IMHO the Perl way is better: the different operators mean that I will get what I want, I don't need to worry about an accidental type juggle; it is also (presumably) faster as the run time does not need to: look at a string, decide if it could be a number and maybe change what it does. The big problem is backwards compatibility, so new operators would be needed: string compare: lt, gt, etc, not much of a problem numeric compare: #< #> would be nice were it not that # means comment. -- Alain Williams Linux/GNU Consultant - Mail systems, Web sites, Networking, Programmer, IT Lecturer. +44 (0) 787 668 0256 https://www.phcomp.co.uk/ Parliament Hill Computers Ltd. Registration Information: https://www.phcomp.co.uk/contact.php #include