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Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2019 11:23:15 +0100
Message-ID: <CA+kxMuQQrDFhFP5b+_K9OJiaayQAHoyH2U_q+7FxH0Q+G7o6XQ@mail.gmail.com>
To: Kosit Supanyo <webdevxp.com@gmail.com>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Question about `global` variable declaration
From: Danack@basereality.com (Dan Ackroyd)

Hi Kosit,

On Sat, 21 Sep 2019 at 10:56, Kosit Supanyo <webdevxp.com@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> global $$x;
> global $$$y;
> global $$$$z;
> global ${'abc'};
> global $$$$$$$$$${random_int(0, PHP_INT_MAX)};

I have found the form `global ${'abc'};` useful in the past to work
around the limits on what PHP can parse as variable names, to allow
naming global settings to match how I like to write them in config
files e.g. 'image.upload.retry_attempts'. I would be very surprised if
there was no codebase in existence that didn't use the other forms,
for better or worse.

> If not, should this be changed to ...

For changes like this, the conversation almost certainly needs to
start by stating a clear problem something is causing, and then lead
on to why doing a suggested solution is the right thing to do.

Although this might be a small inconsistency in the language, by
itself, I can't see it causing much harm, except maybe for performance
optimisation as trying to analyze what variables are being used in the
code is hard.

cheers
Dan
Ack