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Date: Fri, 07 May 2021 17:15:55 -0500
To: "php internals" <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Property accessors
From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("Larry Garfield")

On Tue, May 4, 2021, at 5:33 AM, Nikita Popov wrote:
> 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

Another question: I skimmed through the PR and its tests, and I didn't see any tests around attributes.

How do you envision attributes interacting with accessor-using properties?  I suppose there's no change for implicit accessors, but what happens for explicit accessors?

--Larry Garfield