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Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2025 13:06:16 -0600
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Pattern Matching
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From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("Larry Garfield")

On Wed, Dec 10, 2025, at 12:20 PM, Tim D=C3=BCsterhus wrote:
> Hi
>
> Am 2025-12-10 14:37, schrieb Vinicius Dias:
>>> This particular syntax was chosen as it is the same as in Ruby, the=20
>>> only other language we know of that has this functionality.
>>=20
>> I don't know how helpful this info is, but I'll provide it anyway.
>> Elixir and Erlang also have the functionality and its syntax is the
>> same, using the ^ character.
>>=20
>> https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/pattern-matching.html#the-pin-operator
>
> AFAICT this is not quite right. It is supported in Elixir, but not in=20
> Erlang. There is a proposal to add it to Erlang, but the corresponding=20
> PR is still open, which indicates that it is not accepted yet:=20
> https://www.erlang.org/eeps/eep-0055
>
> It's not surprising to me that Elixir supports it, since Elixir is=20
> heavily inspired / influenced by Ruby.
>
> Best regards
> Tim D=C3=BCsterhus

Still, it's good information to have.  That means two languages using th=
e ^ character, and no one using anything else instead.  We went with ^ l=
argely because "well, that's what Ruby does, and it's easy to implement =
that way."  So if it's more of a common standard (the way |> is the stan=
dard spelling of pipe), that's another argument to follow suit and not c=
omplicate things.

Thanks, Vinicius!

--Larry Tarfield