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Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2025 12:16:09 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Optional Catch Block Body
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From: imsop.php@rwec.co.uk ("Rowan Tommins [IMSoP]")

On 31/07/2025 09:31, Lynn wrote:
> When I read `catch (Foo);` I read the intention of it being on 
> purpose, whereas `catch (Foo) {}` I can easily interpret as "the 
> developer forgot to handle the error" or "I can't tell if this is a 
> bug or not".


As I say, readability is always subjective, but I would just see ";" vs 
"{}" as a style choice, no obvious difference in intention. If anything, 
it would risk me misreading the code, because I'd be looking for the 
braces and not finding them.

A similar argument was made for keeping "var" as an alias of "public", 
to indicate ... something; I argued against that reasoning at the 
time: https://externals.io/message/91618#91634

I don't think the language needs to allow multiple ways of writing 
everything, just so that projects can have subtle conventions of when to 
use which one.


> Now the boilerplate has increased from {} vs ; to quite some extra, 
> just to ensure the intention. I don't know if omitting the body for 
> this is the solution, or if there's something else we can do like: 
> `ignore(Foo, Bar)`. When I read the code I want the intention to be 
> clear, and an empty body just makes me doubt whether or not it is 
> intended and/or correct. 

If the aim is to make the intention explicit, we need some syntax that 
makes the intention explicit, not just different punctuation we hope 
will become established as a convention.


> $foo = try $this->doSomething() ignore (Foo, Bar);


I think an inline syntax like this would be a powerful feature, and a 
potential replacement for the @ operator:


$fh = null;
$fh = try fopen($filePath, 'w') ignore (FileLockedException);


One challenge would be optimising it so that the exception didn't build 
a full stack trace then immediately discard it - this was touched on in 
Larry's thread a while back https://externals.io/message/127188


-- 
Rowan Tommins
[IMSoP]