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Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2021 22:02:59 +0000
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To: Dusk <dusk@woofle.net>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Is there an RFC/discussion for ::class being a specific type?
From: tekiela246@gmail.com (Kamil Tekiela)

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Hi Dusk,

Perhaps, you misunderstood me. Take a look at the documentation
https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.basic.php#language.oop5.basic.class.class
::class is just a compile time transformation. It will give you the fully
qualified name of *something* as a string literal. The only exception to
this is when using ::class on objects, as this is a runtime transformation,
and when using with keyword static.

When ::class is used with a class name, it will give you the name of that
class as a string. When used with a name of a function, it will give you
the name of that function as a string. When used with a string, it will
give you that string as a string.
See this example https://3v4l.org/EKnEd

The fact that this gives you a callable is just coincidental with all
strings being callable in PHP. The reason why it works right now is
because a string can represent a name of a class, interface, trait or
function.
If we were to replace the transformation with something else, like it is
proposed here, we would have to ensure that it is as versatile as a plain
string. Otherwise we would be losing functionality.

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