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Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2022 09:27:35 +0100
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To: Robert Landers <landers.robert@gmail.com>
Cc: "G. P. B." <george.banyard@gmail.com>, PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] NULL Coercion Consistency
From: craig@craigfrancis.co.uk (Craig Francis)

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On Thu, 14 Apr 2022 at 08:31, Robert Landers <landers.robert@gmail.com>
wrote:

> > I see null as a real type
>
> This confuses me...



Andreas is probably the best person to explain their view; oddly I see NULL
as it's own type as well, because are there are times where it's useful to
determine the difference between NULL and an Empty String; but when looking
at examples like user values (e.g. GET/POST/COOKIE) being checked (e.g.
`strlen()` or `preg_match()`), encoded (e.g. shown on a web page with
`htmlspecialchars()`), or simply modified (e.g. `trim()`), I don't see why
those possible NULL values should lead to a Fatal Type Error (unless you
are talking about an environment that uses NULL as an invalid value, but I
suspect that's quite rare).



I see this RFC as a balance in that regard, because real life is
> messy. I really hope it passes and good luck!
>


Thank you Robert, it's right the balance I'm trying to find.

Craig

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