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Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 11:49:44 -0800
To: Marcus Boerger <helly@php.net>,internals@lists.php.net
In-Reply-To: <59089102.20050217201853@marcus-boerger.de>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Before March 1st aka PHP 5.1 beta
From: andi@zend.com (Andi Gutmans)
References: <59089102.20050217201853@marcus-boerger.de>

At 08:18 PM 2/17/2005 +0100, Marcus Boerger wrote:
>Hello internals,
>
>   before we rush into another version, how about clearing some open issues
>that were explicitly relayed from 5.0 to 5.1.
>
>1) __toString()
>
>   There was a problem with the Zend engine 2.0 that forced us to drop this
>   feature. Now that we have 2.1 we should check again and readd the feature.
>   Since PHP is designed to generate string output i think that should be
>   made as easy as possible. And after learning echo and '.' it is hard to
>   explain that 'echo $foo . $bar' could result in something different than
>   'echo $foo, $bar'. Besides if it turned out that there is still a
>   reentrance problem then we'd need to remove __call, __get, __set,
>   iterators.....

Yes, I think we could revisit this. It should work right now although I'm 
still skeptical about what place to put this and what not. If I recall you 
wanted convert_to_string() and all other places to support this, right?
Also, I would like to add serialize/unserialize callbacks for internal 
extensions so that they can take part in session handling. Stas has already 
started looking into it and it's probably a relatively small patch.


>2) type hinting and NULL
>
>   We decided to find a way to handle NULL. Iirc then we settled down on
>   allowing 'foo(BLA $obj = NULL) which could be easily added.

We didn't settle for anything here. We came to the conclusion that we could 
not find a good syntax for it and that the syntax you are proposing is 
ambiguous.

>3) type hinting and arrays
>
>   We decided that we want typehinting for arrays since that is a very
>   special kind. Since my array-typehinting patch was considered 'not so
>   nice' i hope somebody else has a better idea.

My main problem is the implementation. I don't think this is critical for 
5.1 at all.


>4) php 5.1 is aiming to increase performance and security => ifsetor
>
>   It is nice and easy and fast...only it's name. Well guys come on that's
>   the stupiest reason to reject. The name is selfspeaking, you're all only
>   not so used to its name as you are with foreach for now.

It wasn't only the name but also the implementation. Actually, I was hoping 
that the input filter API would resolve this issue once and for all even if 
in a bit of a different (and IMO better) way.

>5) did we came to a conclusion on Rasmus' input filtering yet
>
>   Since we said we aim to increase security with 5.1 we should incorporate
>   that idea/technique in some way.

Yes. It's a good thing but I don't think it has to be in 5.1. We should add 
it when everyone feels comfortable with it and Rasmus has time to work on it.

6) Still need to integrate PDO into the build system. I emailed Wez about 
this. I see this a show stopper for 5.1. Basically I think --with-db should 
build both ext/db and ext/pd_db.

Marcus, 5.1 doesn't have to include everything. The way I see it the 
current improvements in the code base and PDO make for a great .1 release. 
I prefer not making mistakes with features especially when they are issues 
which aren't critical (and I really think they aren't).

Andi