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Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2025 13:12:02 -0600
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] isReadable/isWriteable property reflection
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From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("Larry Garfield")

On Fri, Nov 7, 2025, at 5:03 AM, Tim D=C3=BCsterhus wrote:
> Hi
>
> Am 2025-11-06 00:24, schrieb Larry Garfield:
>> In other news, Ilija and I said a year ago that we'd take a swing at=20
>> adding isReadable/isWriteable methods to ReflectionProperty.  Took a=20
>> while, but here we are.  A strangely small RFC from us:
>>=20
>> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/isreadable-iswriteable
>
> I dislike implicitly =E2=80=9Cscope-dependent=E2=80=9D functions, sinc=
e they effectively=20
> act like magic. This probably makes it harder to understand for humans=20
> and static analysis tools alike. I would therefore suggest making the=20
> `$scope` parameter required. A user can just pass `static::class`=20
> themselves and static analysis tools can use `class-string|null` inste=
ad=20
> of `class-string|"static"|null` as their expected parameter type.

Given that the 90% or more case is likely to be "from my current context=
", making that the default seems the most ergonomic.  (The counter argum=
ent, I suppose, is that this is hardly going to be a super-common routin=
e to call so ergonomics don't matter.)

stack-inspection isn't new.  `Closure::getCurrent()` is the most recent =
example, so we don't think it's especially problematic.

If there's a preference for avoiding magic strings, it would be easy eno=
ugh to use an enum instead.  Something like:

enum CallerScope {
  case Caller;
  case Global;
}

function isReadable(string|CallerScope $scope =3D CallerScope::Caller, ?=
object $objecg =3D null) { ... }

`Caller` would still do the same stack inspection, but it makes the type=
 more tightly controlled and eliminates a nullable.

> As for the magic method logic: I would suggest to ignore the presence =
of=20
> __get() and __set(). This more closely aligns with the direction PHP=20
> goes towards and is also easy to work around by checking with=20
> `method_exists()` whether any such a method exists - the reverse is no=
t=20
> true.

thumbs-up.gif

--Larry Garfield