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Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2026 09:31:16 +0100
To: Ilija Tovilo <tovilo.ilija@gmail.com>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [php-src] PR #20903: GH-10497 (const obj->prop write) -
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From: tim@bastelstu.be (=?UTF-8?Q?Tim_D=C3=BCsterhus?=)

Hi

Am 2026-01-22 00:33, schrieb Ilija Tovilo:
> No strong opinions on my part, but I'd like to point out that similar
> situations already exist.
> 
> https://3v4l.org/ARMMS#v8.4.14
> 
>     const C = [1, 2, 3];
>     function foo(): array {
>         return C;
>     }
>     foo()[] = 4;
>     var_dump(C);
> 
> PHP will happily duplicate the array returned from foo() to append 4,
> without warning. The original array in C remains unmodified. It might

I'm aware. However to me this situation is a little different, 
intuition-wise: A return value already looks and feels like a temporary 
value to me (unless a by-ref return is used, of course, but those are 
rare). An access on a const does not.

> make sense for ASSIGN_DIM to warn/throw if OP1 is not a "pointer"
> (indirect, reference or object), as then the operation will never have
> an effect. But it seems to me this is a distinct issue.

That makes sense to me and IMO is a necessary precursor for this.

Best regards
Tim Düsterhus