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Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2025 07:53:27 +0000
To: internals@lists.php.net
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] RFC: short and inner classes
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From: imsop.php@rwec.co.uk ("Rowan Tommins [IMSoP]")



On 17 March 2025 07:11:23 GMT, Rob Landers <rob@bottled=2Ecodes> wrote:
>
>namespace Outer;
>
>class Inner {}
>
>And
>
>class Outer {
>  class Inner {}
>}
>
>These would both resolve to the same class name for Outer\Inner=2E


That's the frame challenge: is that actually a good thing, because it make=
s the description of nested types a lot simpler?


> Which one it resolves to would depend on how you implement autoloading


That's just the same as having the same class defined in two files on disk=
 - PHP doesn't know which will be used until an autoloader runs=2E

From=20what I understand of the proposal, the calling code won't know anythi=
ng different based on it being "nested" or "namespaced", it will just see a=
 class with a long name with some punctuation in=2E


> Then there becomes the question of either letting user-land implement th=
e autoloading changes, or have php walk =E2=80=9Cup=E2=80=9D the namespace =
chain in the hopes it implements an inner class=2E


I think it should be left to the implementation - PHP makes no assumption =
about one class per file anyway, so am implementation could already do this=
 with a namespace{} block=2E=20

It is a reasonable point that the convention for when an autoloader should=
 walk up, and how far, would need to be defined=2E Then again, I'm increasi=
ngly convinced autoloading is a dead-end for the language, and hope to see =
more enhancements to preloading and a module system instead=2E


> So, maybe, it could be useful to use \ but in the long run, I=E2=80=99m =
not sure it makes sense=2E


I rather think the other way round: in the short term, a new separator wou=
ld save users a bit of pain with autoloading, but in the long run it will l=
ook like a weird anomaly that no other language needs=2E

Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]