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Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 13:35:39 +0200
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Subject: alternative for foreach ()
From: ganswijk@xs4all.nl (Jaap van Ganswijk)

Hi all,

I'd like to propose an alternative for the foreach statement.

Of course the construct:

while (list($i,$d)=each($A))

is much harder to read than:

foreach ($A as $i=>$d)

and although I had doubts at first I'm currently rewriting
all my old scripts to the new format whenever I encounter
them, but I would have much rather seen that this problem
hadn't been solved using a new statement but with a new
operator like:

while (each $i=>$d in $A)

or shorter:

while ($i=>$d in $A)

I think that my solution to the problem has several
advantages:

1. It's possible to use the in-operator as part of a more
complex expression like:

for (;$d in $A and $t++<10;)  //I use this a lot temporarily
                              //in the testing phase of scripts

It would even be possible to write something like:

while ($d in $D and $e in $E) {
  $A[]=$d+$e;
}

2. Rewriting old code is much easier because the variables
stay in the same order.

3. One is free to use a while or a for statement.

I wouldn't bring this matter up if it already was 'water
under the bridge', but this syntax doesn't conflict with
the foreach syntax, so I'm just suggesting that my
syntax is added too, so people can choose what they use.
It wouldn't surprise me when the foreach syntax would be
deprecated soon...

Greetings,
Jaap