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Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2025 21:44:42 +0100
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] [Discussion] Stringable Enums
To: Derick Rethans <derick@php.net>,
 Daniel Scherzer <daniel.e.scherzer@gmail.com>
Cc: "Rowan Tommins [IMSoP]" <imsop.php@rwec.co.uk>, internals@lists.php.net
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From: bobwei9@hotmail.com (Bob Weinand)

Good point Derick,

On 4.12.2025 14:36:14, Derick Rethans wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Dec 2025, Tim Düsterhus wrote:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> Am 2025-12-04 09:01, schrieb Rowan Tommins [IMSoP]:
>>
>>> And is it even a good name for those methods? In the date-time
>>> package, for instance, it would be better named toEnglishName() or
>>> getFullEnglishName(), as its docblock explicitly says. In the
>>> framework code, it seems to be used for a property called
>>> $displayValue, so the obvious name for the method would be
>>> getDisplayValue().
>> I fundamentally disagree with the proposal for reasons similar to those that
>> Rowan mentioned. More specifically, I consider implementing `__toString()` to
>> be a mistake, unless it is for a debug representation.
> I agree, and also:
>
> We usually have a `__debugInfo()` method for debugging purposes. Instead
> of allowing `__toString()` to be added, I think I would rather see
> `__debugInfo()` being allowed.
>
> It must continue to be not possible to treat enums as strings.
>
> cheers,
> Derick


Daniel, if you want to improve the magic method situation here, I'd much 
rather encourage you to add __debugInfo() than anything else.

(Also fwiw I think __toString() should never have existed in the first 
place; but that's a wholly different topic.)


Bob