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Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2020 17:36:39 +0100
Message-ID: <CALKiJKpN2j76iXbF72_tL+j4KEqgNGYm2ZCvt_DxfiorStTG8w@mail.gmail.com>
To: PHP Developers Mailing List <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000a317d805ac9cad77"
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [VOTE] Shorter Attribute Syntax Change
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Tommins)

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On Tue, 11 Aug 2020 at 17:07, Theodore Brown <theodorejb@outlook.com> wrote:

>
> I would suggest "Kinds of symbols used".
>
> @@ is easier since it only uses one kind of symbol, rather than
> switching between two or three symbols which are often on different
> sides of the keyboard.
>


Honestly, this feels about as objective as "number of pixels" - feel free
to use it your own vote, but it doesn't feel headline-worthy.



> > > fact that the @@ syntax makes attributes easier to grep for.
>
> This can be a simple Yes or No. With @@ or @: you can type those
> symbols followed by the attribute name to grep for it. With the other
> syntaxes and attribute grouping, if the name isn't unique it may be
> difficult to search for since you can't rely on a unique leading symbol.
>


Surely *all* of the syntaxes will be easily greppable once adopted, because
any instances that aren't attributes will have to be fixed (other than
those in comments and strings, which can happen with any of them).

Any of these will show up very little outside attributes once you've fixed
parse errors:

#[
@[
@:
@@

"<<" is possibly an outlier here IF you use bit shifts a lot.


To filter further, you can write a quick regex to match the attribute name;
untested, but something like:

/#\[[A-Za-z0-9\\]+[\(\]]/
/@\[[A-Za-z0-9\\]+[\(\]]/
/@:[A-Za-z0-9\\]+/
/@@[A-Za-z0-9\\]+/
/<<[A-Za-z0-9\\]+(>>|\()/

That last one has a small chance of matching something like "$foo =
$bar<<getShiftSize();" which might be annoying if you use bitshifts a lot
AND don't put spaces around operators.


So, sure, <<Foo>> has a small disadvantage here, but it's also been
thoroughly rejected in a previous vote, and seems unlikely to suddenly make
a comeback.


Regards,
-- 
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]

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