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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [PATCH] #52563: Adding E_NONE and/or E_EVERYTHING constants
From: lester@lsces.co.uk (Lester Caine)

Johannes Schlüter wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-08-24 at 18:49 +0800, Adam Harvey wrote:
>> Johannes has pointed out on IRC that E_NONE does already exist in some
>> projects, so that's an argument against it.
>
> Yeah, I did a quick code search, which gave some results defining a
> constant with that name. This means adding this in 5.3 would be a
> annoyance and upgrading from X.Y.(Z-1) to X.Y.Z should be a no
> brainer ... on the other hand the fact that people are defining such a
> constant and the bug report show that there is some need.
>
> I myself don't see a point in a constant for an empty bit mask. As an
> empty bit mask means 0 ... on the other hand it doesn't cost us much.
>
> So, I'm +/- 0 on this for trunk.

'a quick code search' for '0' is not going to produce anything sensible, while a 
quick code search for 'E_NONE' will (in theory) pick up all the places where 
that particular setting is used. So there IS some sensible reason to add 
'pointless' constants. The problem is - it only works if people DO use it 
consistently ...

Given that many people are not used to the maze of code, improving navigability 
by adding consistent 'pointless' constants could potentially help a lot, even if 
the constant is simply added as a comment where a check for 0 does not actually 
need the value?

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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