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Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2025 17:37:44 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] First-class constructor callables
To: Valentin Udaltsov <udaltsov.valentin@gmail.com>
Cc: php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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From: arnaud.lb@gmail.com (Arnaud Le Blanc)

On Thu, Nov 20, 2025 at 3:21=E2=80=AFPM Arnaud Le Blanc <arnaud.lb@gmail.co=
m> wrote:
>
> Hi Valentin,
>
> On Thu, Nov 20, 2025 at 2:20=E2=80=AFPM Valentin Udaltsov
> <udaltsov.valentin@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Question for Larry and Arnaud:
> >
> > In PFA v2, you note that constructor references pose significant techni=
cal challenges.
> > Could you elaborate on what those challenges are and whether they are f=
undamental, or potentially addressable with a more limited or explicit synt=
ax such as `new Foo(...)`?
>
> One issue is that partial application needs to resolve the function
> being applied, but constructors can not be resolved without
> instantiating the class first (at least, not on all classes).

To clarify, constructors are normally resolved after creating an
object, by calling the get_constructor() handler on the object. The
handler isn't known before creating the object, at least for internal
classes, so we can't resolve a constructor without creating an object
first. This would have to be addressed in order to support partial
application of classes.