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Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2007 16:42:04 +0200
To: Gregory Beaver <greg@chiaraquartet.net>,
	internals Mailing List <internals@lists.php.net>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: namespaces: import name conflicts with defined class
From: php@benjaminschulz.com (Benjamin Schulz)

>>
> <?php
> namespace test;
> class Exception {}
> $a = new Exception('hi');
> ?>
>
> The above code works just fine.
>
> Yes there is a concept.  import is best used within a namespace.  So,
> namespace your code and there is no need to import global classes.

Yep, it works if your whole application uses one namespace, but what  
if you have a core package that defines some exceptions and another  
package, with a different namespace, that wants to use the core  
exceptions? Like

namespace App;
class Exception extends Exception { ... }

and in another File:

namespace App::Db;
import App::Exception;
....

This doesn't work. And worse: imagine PEAR would bring a  
PEAR::Exception along, PEAR would be my basic framework and i  
wouldn't care about ::Exception, i don't even know it's there - i am  
using PEAR. In every Script i would like to use PEAR::Exception in a  
convenient way i have to write:

<?php
import ::Exception AS WTF;
import PEAR::Exception;
?>
(Nevermind if this example doesn't fit the PEAR-idea, just s/PEAR/ 
randomFramework/g then)

You think this makes sense?
Or what about this:
pear/Mail_IMAP/IMAP.php (dunno if this file exists):
<?php
namespace PEAR::Mail::IMAP;
import ::Exception AS WTF;
import PEAR::Exception;

class Imap {
...
}

All this seems just wrong to me, sorry. And i fully agree with Markus:
> But how to know in advance, e.g. think about other libraries, which
> public classes possibly exist? Isn't this problematic then?

Let's say i PEAR would have namespaces and there is a class  
PEAR::DB::Mysql, i use this class as:
<?php
import PEAR::DB::Mysql;

class MyDb extends Mysql {
...
}

And surprisingly someday mysqlnd declares a class named "Mysql", that  
would break my code even though i explicitly declared that i want  
"PEAR::DB::Mysql" not some different Mysql class that comes from some  
fancy extension the admin added today.
So, why this behaviour?

regards,
Benjamin