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Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2006 02:23:51 +0100
Reply-To: Marcus Boerger <helly@php.net>
Message-ID: <1624938753.20060104022351@marcus-boerger.de>
To: Andrew Yochum <andrew@plexpod.com>
Cc: php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] __call overload detection
From: helly@php.net (Marcus Boerger)

Hello Andrew,

  you got everything correct and i see your point, so you may want to open a
feature request under bugs.php.net.

marcus

Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 1:37:26 AM, you wrote:

> Hi Marcus,

> On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 10:50:24PM +0100, Marcus Boerger wrote:
>> Hello Andrew,
>> 
>>   you do not implement __call for a method but you deal with the method name
>> in any sense you like, which also includes ignoring specific __call
>> invocations. Reflection gives you the ability to check whetehr a function
>> is being physically available. If you need more it is up to you to provide
>> the infrastructure. Remember we will not in anyway allow __call to handle
>> inheritance.
>> 
>> regards
>> marcus

> Gotcha.

> So to be clear, here's what the language has and behaves now:
> 1. __call allows for method overloading
> 2. interfaces, method_exists, and Reflection API tells if a physical
> method exists - including __call method itself
> 3. is_callable tells if a method is callable (always true if __call
> is implemented)
> 4. Calls to a non-existent method on classes w/ no __call overloading
> results in a fatal error
> 5. Calls to a non-existent method on classes w/ __call overloading
> succeeds, but result is undefined.

> And how to use it:
> 1. Determining if a physical method exists is easy through interfaces,
> method_exists, reflection APIs
> 2. Implementations of __call may do what they like with the invocations
> such as ignore silently, trigger an error, throw an exception or
> implement some other kind of custom protocol
> 3. To determine if a class implementing __call will respond to a method
> invocation you must call it, regardless of side-effects, and must know
> the protocol used by the class you're calling

> I understand if the original intention was to use __call this way, and
> that the language is not planned to change.  I suggest such a change for
> the benefit of the language and its users by providing consistency.

> It seems this behavior of method overloading introduces an inconsistency
> in the language that breaks the ease-of-use mantra of PHP.  Why should a
> class who uses method overloading behave differently than a class that
> does not?

> 5.1 added the __isset and __unset methods for allowing property
> overloading to behave consistently with regular properties, allowing
> both classes that do and do not implement property overloading to behave
> the same.  It seems appropriate that the method overloading behave
> similarly.  An everyday end-user of the language should not need to know
> if he's invoking or looking to invoke an overloaded method or not.

> Regards,
> Andrew

> -- 
> Andrew Yochum
> Plexpod
> andrew@plexpod.com
> 718-360-0879




Best regards,
 Marcus