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Date: Tue, 4 May 2021 15:57:56 +0200
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To: Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Property accessors
From: olleharstedt@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Olle_H=C3=A4rstedt?=)

2021-05-04 12:33 GMT+02:00, Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com>:
> Hi internals,
>
> I'd like to present an RFC for property accessors:
> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/property_accessors
>
> Property accessors are like __get() and __set(), but for a single property.
> They also support read-only properties and properties with asymmetric
> visibility (public read, private write) as a side-effect.
>
> The proposal is modeled after C#-style accessors (also used by Swift), and
> syntactically similar to the previous
> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/propertygetsetsyntax-v1.2 proposal.
>
> While I put a lot of effort into both the proposal and the implementation,
> I've grown increasingly uncertain that this is the right direction for us
> to take. The proposal turned out to be significantly more complex than I
> originally anticipated (despite reducing the scope to only "get" and "set"
> accessors), and I'm sure there are some interactions I still haven't
> accounted for. I'm not convinced the value justifies the complexity.
>
> So, while I'm putting this up for discussion, it may be that I will not
> pursue landing it. I think a lot of the practical value of this accessors
> proposal would be captured by support for read-only (and/or private-write)
> properties. This has been discussed (and declined) in the past, but
> probably should be revisited.
>
> Regards,
> Nikita
>

Hi,

In general I'm no fan of trivial getters and setters at all in OOP. I
think a better solution is provided by:

* readonly properties (or write-once, in the constructor)
* namespace- or package-internal accessing; "internal" as an
alternative to public/private

Especially when getters and setters do not upheld any particular
invariants or check validation.

Note that namespace-internal access cannot be provided by getters and
setters (though technically it's a big and hard change to PHP, AFAIK).

Olle