Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:38617
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: error (pb1.pair.com: domain chiaraquartet.net from 38.99.98.18 cause and error)
Message-ID: <48629FA5.3050201@chiaraquartet.net>
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:42:29 -0500
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (Windows/20080421)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Derick Rethans <derick@php.net>
CC: Andi Gutmans <andi@zend.com>, Stanislav Malyshev <stas@zend.com>, 
 Dmitry Stogov <dmitry@zend.com>,
 internals Mailing List <internals@lists.php.net>
References: <485BD1C0.8040302@chiaraquartet.net> <alpine.DEB.0.98.0806241634430.16594@kossu.ez.no>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.0.98.0806241634430.16594@kossu.ez.no>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] simple solution to another namespace conundrum?
From: greg@chiaraquartet.net (Greg Beaver)

Derick Rethans wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Jun 2008, Gregory Beaver wrote:
> 
>> The user is obviously intentionally creating a "DateTime" class, and
>> doesn't care about the internal classname in this script.
>>
>> The attached patch against PHP_5_3 would fix the issue by eliminating
>> the check for conflict with CG(class_table) in the global namespace for
>> internal classes.  It however preserves this check for userspace classes
>> so that (for instance) php-src/tests/Zend/ns_030.phpt does not fail. 
>> The basic idea is that we do have control over the userspace classes we
>> include, but have no control over the internal classes.
> 
> I am not so sure this is a good idea. I mean, for the developer that 
> writes the code it's obvious that his version of DateTime is used. But 
> for a second developer to come back later this could be a great WTF 
> factor a few years down the road - wondering why the DateTime 
> documentation on php.net doesn't match with what the class does. 

Hi Derick,

This is (as Rasmus points out) a hazard of using namespaces, but it need 
not be a large hazard.  I've said this before, but it would be wise to 
implement a namespace-expansion similar to whitespace-stripping option 
in php, so that one can convert use statements to namespace names.  Of 
course, a PHP script to do this would be about 25 lines long, so that is 
an option too, but I would guarantee that if you're finding this wtf to 
be a problem, there are going to be more problems in the script than 
just use statements that alias to internal classnames.

To be more direct - the "use" statement only applies to the current 
file, which makes debugging this situation much easier.

The real WTF comes into play when you have a static method that resolves 
to the same name as a namespaced function, something that absolutely 
must be worked out prior to PHP 5.3's release.  I know a few ideas are 
percolating about on this one from the people I've talked to on and 
off-list, I am looking forward to the ultimate resolution.

Greg