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Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 02:18:12 -0500 (CDT)
To: "Zeev Suraski" <zeev@zend.com>
Cc: "Lukas Kahwe Smith" <mls@pooteeweet.org>,
 "Pierre" <pierre.php@gmail.com>,
 "Andi Gutmans" <andi@zend.com>,
 "Ilia Alshanetsky" <ilia@prohost.org>,
 jani.taskinen@iki.fi,
 internals@lists.php.net
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] POSIX regex
From: ceo@l-i-e.com ("Richard Lynch")

On Wed, July 18, 2007 10:45 am, Zeev Suraski wrote:

I also was thinking the other day, like Ze'ev, that PHP Devs aren't
really in touch with the unwashed masses of the userbase...

There are a zillion websites "out there" that run on shared hosts with
copy/pasted code and all these scripters will get burned big-time if
ereg is suddenly unavailable.

They don't really care about PCRE versus POSIX, so long as they can
get the job done.

I suspect all the shared webhosts will just install ereg once they
figure out that their users who never re-factor need it, but they'll
be pretty cranky with you for nuking it and making them jump through
an extra hoop to bring it back.

And all the distro package-maintainers will probably just bundle it
right into their packages.

And there will be tutorials on how to compile PHP with ereg in it, or
how to add it back into windows, or how to install PECL ereg.

So just yanking ereg will cause a fair amount of grief, followed by
the dubious benefit of thousands of users figuring out how to install
a PECL module.

Any gurus really offended by ereg can --disable-ereg or whatever it
is, no?

At least just spit out an E_DEPRECATED in PHP 6, and move it to PECL
in PHP 7.

Give people enough warning that it's going away before nuking it, so
that you can at least say "You've been warned for a whole major
release that it was going away."

I suspect you'll still end up with people just installing it rather
than re-writing their code, though, so it's not serving any real
purpose to any real users to move it.

The people who need to use PCRE exclusively can do that already.

The people who need their legacy code to work will just have to jump
through an extra hoop.

What purpose is served, then, in moving ereg out? None, really.

PS
I'm working on the PostgreSQL POSIX->PCRE patch, as I don't think PHP
itself should need ereg.

-- 
Some people have a "gift" link here.
Know what I want?
I want you to buy a CD from some indie artist.
http://cdbaby.com/browse/from/lynch
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