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Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 15:03:06 +0200
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To: someniatko <someniatko@gmail.com>, php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Custom object equality
From: pierre-php@processus.org (Pierre)

Le 18/10/2023 à 14:50, someniatko a écrit :
> Hi internals,
>
> This approach allows combining
> - no BC break - `~=` is a new syntax which is unavailable in older PHP
> versions
> - explicitly showing an intent that objects are compared using a custom
> comparison, rather than standard PHP one
> - allow to skip writing boilerplate equals() methods which just forward
> equals() to the nested objects
> - standardize such comparisons on the language level
>
> Of course how exactly this operator looks may be changed, `~=` is just an
> example.
>
> WDYT?

I'm not fond of operator overloading, I actually quite hate it, I like 
the expressiveness of an equals() method.

I would very much prefer to have a set of standard interfaces such as 
Comparable { compareTo($other): int } or Equatable { equals($other): 
bool; } which the standard API and userland libraries could make use of.

In all cases, I don't like the ~= choice because in my mind it literally 
translates to "is approximately/barely/maybe comparable to".

By the way, please  do not use abbreviations such as WDYT, I'm not a 
native english speaker and I don't know all abbreviations, I had to 
duckduckgo' it.

Regards,

--

Pierre