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Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 09:30:38 -0700
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To: Ilia Alshanetsky <ilia@prohost.org>
CC: Marcus Boerger <mail@marcus-boerger.de>, internals@lists.php.net,
	Dmitry Stogov <dmitry@zend.com>, Andi Gutmans <andi@zend.com>,
	Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com>, Ilia Alshanetsky <iliaa@php.net>
References: <795156743.20060603134212@marcus-boerger.de> <18CE805D-C032-4B64-950A-119E46287AF5@prohost.org>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Missing __toString() part
From: rasmus@lerdorf.com (Rasmus Lerdorf)

I don't understand why using the object as an index would trigger a 
__toString() call.  PHP's array indices are not defined to be strings, 
so I don't see this as being a string context use and thus __toString() 
shouldn't be called.

I also don't see why we need to make a distinction between the key and 
the value here if there is any way we can avoid it.

For example, this obviously works:

   class foo {
     function a() { echo "a"; }
   }
   $a = new foo();
   $b[1] = $a;
   $b[1]->a();

Why shouldn't this?

   $b[$a] = 1;
   key($b)->a();

I have always looked a PHP array as having 2 places to store things. 
You can store stuff in the key with the caveat/feature that it must be 
unique and you can store whatever you want in the value part.  Only 
allowing strings and integers in the key seems like an arbitrary 
restriction to me.  As long as the key is something we can somehow 
uniquely identify I think we should aim to support it.

-Rasmus

Ilia Alshanetsky wrote:
> I think this is a potentially missing bit of functionality we definitely 
> need to consider including. There is really no technical reason why 
> $foo[new ToStringObject] = "bar"; cannot work or a reason why it 
> shouldn't as far as functionality goes.
> 
> 
> Ilia Alshanetsky
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 3-Jun-06, at 7:42 AM, Marcus Boerger wrote:
> 
>> Hello guys,
>>
>>   the attached patch closes one more __toString() part. It allows
>> to use objects that define __toString as indexes to arrays. What do
>> you guys think about this, should we add it or stay with the old
>> behavior that didn't allow objects as indexes at all.
>>
>> --Best regards,
>>  Marcus                          mailto:mail@marcus-boerger.de
>> <ze2-offset-obj-tostring-20060603.diff.txt>
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