Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:23142
Return-Path: <dante@vocalspace.com>
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Delivered-To: mailing list internals@lists.php.net
Received: (qmail 19359 invoked by uid 1010); 4 May 2006 01:33:25 -0000
Delivered-To: ezmlm-scan-internals@lists.php.net
Delivered-To: ezmlm-internals@lists.php.net
Received: (qmail 19344 invoked from network); 4 May 2006 01:33:25 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO lists.php.net) (127.0.0.1)
  by localhost with SMTP; 4 May 2006 01:33:25 -0000
X-PHP-List-Original-Sender: dante@vocalspace.com
X-Host-Fingerprint: 69.56.193.72 fox02.stravio.com Linux 2.5 (sometimes 2.4) (4)
Received: from ([69.56.193.72:49697] helo=fox02.stravio.com)
	by pb1.pair.com (ecelerity 2.0 beta r(6323M)) with SMTP
	id 93/0F-63443-4E959544 for <internals@lists.php.net>; Wed, 03 May 2006 21:33:24 -0400
Received: from [127.0.0.1] (unknown [66.243.31.162])
	by fox02.stravio.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 661DA26C2F2;
	Wed,  3 May 2006 20:33:21 -0500 (CDT)
Message-ID: <445959DD.9030607@vocalspace.com>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 20:33:17 -0500
User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 (Windows/20060308)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Rasmus Lerdorf <rasmus@lerdorf.com>
Cc: Jochem Maas <jochem@iamjochem.com>,
	Rick Widmer <vchkpw@developersdesk.com>,
	PHPdev <internals@lists.php.net>
References: <44584619.60400@lorenso.com> <200605030815.34801.johannes@php.net> <44585828.1030603@vocalspace.com> <BCFE5FAA-E5EF-4401-BA0A-F353810FCA0F@aplosmedia.com> <44585E89.6000400@vocalspace.com> <44586BDF.6040600@developersdesk.com> <4459410D.9090802@vocalspace.com> <445942E9.201@developersdesk.com> <44594553.6020009@iamjochem.com> <44594A27.4040201@vocalspace.com> <4459558D.7050703@lerdorf.com>
In-Reply-To: <4459558D.7050703@lerdorf.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Seeking 'coalesce' php internal function
From: dante@vocalspace.com ("D. Dante Lorenso")

Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:
> Not sure what you guys are talking about.  ?: is on the roadmap.
> -Rasmus

Ok.  That has some signs of hope.  What is ?: exactly, though.  I 
searched '?:' and yeah, good luck with that in documentation.  It 
doesn't smell like it supports all the specifics that 'filled()' does.  
Am I supposed to do this:

    $value = $x ?: $y ?: $z ?: $default;

And no warnings will be thrown for $x, $y, and $z not existing?  Did you 
see my post about 'filled()'?

    http://news.php.net/php.internals/23132

Honestly, I'm happy to see '?:' because that's better than nothing, but 
I think filled() is more like empty() and would be a better 
implementation.  If you want to look at the language from a consistency 
point of view '?:' is very PERL-like whereas filled(...) is PHP-like:

PERL-like:

    $x ~= s/\s+//;
    $x = $a ?: $b ?: $c;

PHP-like:
  
    $x = preg_replace("/\s+/", "", $x);
    $x = filled($a, $b, $c);

In my PHP zen world, empty() and filled() are friends.  Ok, I've been 
selling 'filled()' for a while now.  Can we reverse the sell and try 
this .. why SHOULDN'T filled() be added to the language?

Dante