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Date: Mon, 18 May 2026 00:32:22 +0700
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Subject: [PHP-DEV] Coalescing and nullsafe same time
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From: vadim.dvorovenko@gmail.com (Vadim Dvorovenko)

Sorry for raising such an ancient topic.

Аccidentally noticed, that construction like 
`$arr['undefined']?->foo()->bar` causes error, and not behaves the same, 
as `($arr['undefined'] ?? null)?->foo()->bar`.

Readed docs, https://wiki.php.net/rfc/nullsafe_operator, asked google 
and learned, that there were much discussions about such behavior, and 
it was chosen deliberately. Nevertheless, structures like 
`(($arr['undefined'] ?? null)?->foo()->bar)` does not looks pretty for 
me. `$arr['undefined']->foo->bar ?? null` works great, until function 
calls appears in chain, and `$arr['undefined']->foo()->bar ?? null` 
breaks. It looks like objects are our favorites for short and safe 
operations, but arrays are not.

But during development, you can equally easily encounter typed arrays 
(for example, with a structure described through phpdocs), and working 
directly with properties, and traditional getters. An structured 
associative array that has optional fields is also a common pattern. And 
in large projects these patterns they can be found in almost any 
combination.

So it looks like the language needs a construct for pretty code in such 
cases. What do you think it should look like?

* Make nullsafe operator to be coalescing too. Making 
`$arr['undefined']?->foo()->bar` no to cause error, but return null

* Some new coalescing-nullsafe-operator, `??->`. 
`$arr['undefined']??->foo()->bar` suppressing all errors to the left 
same way `??` does.

* Some new nullsafe-array-access operator `$arr?-['key']`. This leads to 
`$arr?-['key']->foo()->bar` for cases where we are sure that array has 
key. Supposed short-circuiting working here too.

* Some new coalesce-array-access operators `$arr??-['key']`. Making 
`$arr??-['key']->foo()->bar` for cases, there we are not sure, that 
array has key.

* Suppress function call on nulls and undefined errors in 
`$var->foo()->bar() ?? null`.