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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Type Aliases
In-Reply-To: <4ba0f7ca-815f-47d8-a6bf-43abe2aff842@app.fastmail.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2025 15:13:50 -0600
Cc: internals@lists.php.net
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Message-ID: <14FB7636-3FCC-4E24-AA2F-C52A0708F3E2@pmjones.io>
References: <87e9d1bf-e407-45c1-9fad-d8759405ab8b@app.fastmail.com>
 <45C95FE8-B0FB-4A22-9460-477533527F41@pmjones.io>
 <4ba0f7ca-815f-47d8-a6bf-43abe2aff842@app.fastmail.com>
To: Rob Landers <rob@bottled.codes>
From: pmjones@pmjones.io ("Paul M. Jones")



> On Dec 3, 2025, at 15:09, Rob Landers <rob@bottled.codes> wrote:
>=20
> On Wed, Dec 3, 2025, at 22:04, Paul M. Jones wrote:
>>=20
>>=20
>> Hi Rob,
>>=20
>> (We've been using a lot of PHPStan type aliasing lately in the =
Star-Interop work, so this topic is timely.)
>>=20
>> Is there some possibility of making the aliases more classlike so =
they can be autoloaded? A la:
>>=20
>> namespace Foo;
>> type number { as int|float; }
>>=20
>> Then elsewhere:
>>=20
>> use Foo\number;
>> function sum(number $a, number $b): number { return $a + $b; }
>>=20
>> Let me know if I've missed something fundamental.
>>=20
>>=20
>> -- pmj
>=20
>=20
> They fundamentally cannot be autoloaded because autoloading happens at =
runtime, not compile time. At least, with the current autoloader. =
Autoloading type aliases would need to have a fundamentally different =
type of autoloading that doesn=E2=80=99t exist today.

Got it; thanks for the clarification.


-- pmj