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Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2026 11:52:56 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Context Managers
To: Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com>,
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From: tim@bastelstu.be (=?UTF-8?Q?Tim_D=C3=BCsterhus?=)

Hi

On 1/15/26 17:01, Larry Garfield wrote:
> The core point here is that we needed some way to successfully terminate the block early

As I asked in my previous email: Why?

You state this requirement as if it was an undisputable fact, but I 
don't see how it is *needed* and no reasoning is given.

> `continue` is really just to mirror what switch does with it.  If the consensus is to simply disallow `continue` entirely (which is inconsistent with what switch does today), we're OK with that.  I don't feel strongly either way, so we're looking for a consensus.

What do you mean by “disallow `continue` entirely”? Does this include 
`continue 2;` targeting a loop or is this just referring to “continue 
targeting `using()`?

> If there's a different keyword than `break` you think would make more sense here, please do suggest it and provide an argument.  But "break does the same thing here it does in switch, foreach, and while" seems like a pretty straightforward approach.

“break does a different thing here than it does in if, else, try, catch, 
finally, namespace, and declare” doesn't seem like a straightforward 
approach to me.

To me using() feels much closer to an if() (or try, given the 
desugaring) than to a loop. As I had mentioned in my email 
https://news-web.php.net/php.internals/129582, `goto` *is fine*. And 
`do-while(false)` would also work as a restricted form of “forward goto”.

>> With regard to the desugaring listed at the top: Can you please also
>> provide the desugaring for the case where no context variable is
>> specified for completeness?
> 
> Desugaring at the top?  The desugaring is explained about a third of the way down. :-)  Is that what you mean?  (In the "Implementation" section.)  It doesn't make any sense to go into that level of detail in the introduction.

Yes, I meant the first code block in the “Implementation” section. To me 
that felt like the “top” of the RFC. I didn't mean to suggest to move it 
elsewhere, I requested an example of what:

     using (new Manager())

without the `=> $var` results in.

Best regards
Tim Düsterhus