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Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 15:09:34 +0100
Lines: 133
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Syntax in PHP 6
From: r.korving@xit.nl ("Ron Korving")

Nice start (your url (function list) doens't seem to work yet by the way).

Just my 2 cents:

I don't like the '2' at all. I'd rather see nltobr() and dectohex() than 
nl2br() and dec2hex(). I do like the idea of loosing all underscores (but I 
bet there will be quite a number of developers here who want to keep 
underscores). Removing underscores though, would open 2 possibilities:
- studlycaps
- no more randomness in underscore usage in function names (as you so 
wonderfully explained)

Since function names are case insensitive anyway, it won't be a problem at 
all, and it'll provide word-boundaries just like underscores do today:

strPos()
arrayMerge()
isInt()
imageCreateFromString()

changes to make this happen:

create alias array_merge() for arrayMerge()
create alias is_int() for isInt()
strpos needs no change, except that it will officially be strPos()
imagecreatefromstring needs no change, except that it will officially be 
strPos()

The situation will end up 100% BC and aliases can be removed in PHP 7 or 
later.

- Ron



"Michael Cordover" <spam_me@mjec.net> schreef in bericht 
news:43905052.1070208@mjec.net...
>
>
> Sara Golemon wrote:
>> I say this with no degree of sarcasm or ill-will:  Create a formal 
>> proposal.
>
> Well, you asked for it ;).
>
> Goals:
> - remove confusion when a user thinks about a function's name
> - develop consistency throughout the language
> - be backwards compatible as much as possible
>
> The basic idea began as "rename confusing functions but keep their old 
> names as aliases to the 'preferred' version with a view to eventually 
> removing the old ones".  Well, let's take a look at a few things.  Using a 
> little bit of counting code and get_defined_functions(), it appears that 
> there are 510 internal functions containing underscores and 304 which 
> don't (PHP 5.0.4).  The obvious solution appears to be to change all 
> functions to use underscores.
>
> I went through the function list in an attempt to do just that.  Many 
> functions convert reasonably well - chop() remains chop(), 
> escapeshellarg() becomes escape_shell_arg().  A fair number, however, were 
> not quite so friendly.  Should fclose() and feof() remain as such or 
> should they become f_eof() and f_close()?  fileatime() to file_atime() or 
> file_a_time()?  Is basename one word or two?  There are also a fair number 
> of functions like nl2br() - nl_2_br() would be silly.
>
> It seems to me, therefore, that we should get rid of the underscores. Yes, 
> this means changing a lot more functions around, but adding underscores 
> will just make function names MORE confusing where there's ambiguity - and 
> that's what we want to remove.  It's one of the big complains about PHP, 
> that ambiguity.  Furthermore, we don't want to make substantial changes to 
> function names - doing things like nl2br() -> nl_to_br() will confuse more 
> people than necessary and may conflict with existing user-defined function 
> names.
>
> So, let's list functions and replace out all the underscores.  We get:
> http://mjec.net/php/functions.html
>
> Well, that's not actually consistent with PHP overall.  cal_to_jd() 
> becomes caltojd() - that should really be cal2jd() to stay consistent. So 
> lets do that.  And at this stage I also added some checking to make sure 
> there were no functions being duplicated.  Well, there was one - 
> diskfreespace() is an alias of disk_free_space().  That is, however, the 
> only internal conflict I could find.  That listing is at:
> http://mjec.net/php/betterfunctions.html
>
> There are a few functions I think need actual renaming, for consistency:
> bindec() -> bin2dec()
> decbin() -> dec2bin()
> octdec() -> oct2dec()
> decoct() -> dec2oct()
> hexdec() -> hex2dec()
> dechex() -> dec2hex()
> Those are the only ones I can think of at the moment.  If you can think of 
> any more, please tell me.
>
> So, let's look at where we are now.  We can rename all 510 
> underscore-containing functions to not using their underscores, a 
> relatively easy transformation.  Similarly, changing '_to_' to '2' before 
> killing underscores is trivial.  Those bindec() -> bin2dec() etc have to 
> be done manually.  Then alias the old versions to the new function names.
>
> So, if a user knows a function's name they don't have to worry about 
> underscores any more.  The language is consistent with respect to 
> underscores - there aren't any.  But you can still use all the old 
> function names, so we retain BC.  I believe the suggestion was to remove 
> this by PHP 8, which sounds reasonable.
>
> What's wrong with this proposal?  Well, a few things.  Firstly, it doesn't 
> make all function names intuitive - there's still the word order problem. 
> Secondly, it's a hell of a lot of work to change 510 function names and 
> then alias them.
>
> Well, the first one just needs someone to go through all 813 distinct 
> functions (not 814 because diskfreespace() is in there twice) and note 
> which order they're in, then reorder them.  I'll do this when I've got a 
> bit more time on my hands - probably early next week.
>
> The second bit is fair enough, yes.  It might be automatable?  I'm not 
> sure and will look into this once I get a proper internet connection back.
>
> The One Big Argument against the more wide-spread use of PHP is that it 
> doesn't have consistent function names.  If this can be fixed, well, you 
> bewdy, as we say in .au.  All I have to remember is haystack, needle 
> except in_array() and array_search().
>
> And those are my two cents.
>
> -mjec
> -- 
> http://mine.mjec.net/