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Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2019 15:01:39 -0500
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To: =?UTF-8?B?0JLQu9Cw0LQg0JzQsNC60LjQvQ==?= <vamakin@gmail.com>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] RFC: var_export - short syntax for array
From: pollita@php.net (Sara Golemon)

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On Tue, Aug 20, 2019 at 1:05 PM =D0=92=D0=BB=D0=B0=D0=B4 =D0=9C=D0=B0=D0=BA=
=D0=B8=D0=BD <vamakin@gmail.com> wrote:

> I would like to propose a little change in var_export function behavior.
> For today, this function returns string representation of array in old
> style with =E2=80=9Carray=E2=80=9D keyword:
>
> var_export([]); // array()
>
> I think it would be better if the function returned array representation =
in
> modern square brackets syntax:
>
> var_export([]); // []
>
> I do like the idea of doing this, and would even be generally okay with
just making always work that way since the introduction of square bracket
syntax is really *quite* old.

The only people I could see being bothered by the change in output would be
automated code-generation suddenly seeing a (potentially quite massive)
diff as the bracket style changes.  As an example,
https://github.com/php/web-php/blob/master/include/releases.inc is a 10k
line var_export() generated list.  I'm actually /not/ bothered by the idea
of having a big point-in-time flip of that structure, though I'd want to
make sure all RMs switch versions at the same time, otherwise it could get
noisy.

Perhaps an option to quell any dissent might be to add a third param
$options to allow controlling this behavior.

function var_export(mixed $data, bool $return =3D false, int $options =3D 0=
):
string {}

And you could either pass EXPORT_SHORT_ARRAY or EXPORT_LONG_ARRAY or
whatever you want to call the constants depending on which behavior you'd
make default (and honestly, I think we'd make the existing format default).

-Sara

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