Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:54595
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: pass (pb1.pair.com: domain googlemail.com designates 209.85.214.42 as permitted sender)
Message-ID: <4E483479.8070605@googlemail.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:47:53 +0200
Reply-To: sebastian.krebs.berlin@googlemail.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.18) Gecko/20110617 Thunderbird/3.1.11
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: internals@lists.php.net
References: <CAH-PCH5YvyBWfKomU0RaJw2E-GVqPXOV2TZMN9EURfQvYxu54w@mail.gmail.com> <alpine.DEB.2.02.1108141452460.4043@whisky>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1108141452460.4043@whisky>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Function autoloading through spl_autoload*
From: sebastian.krebs.berlin@googlemail.com (Sebastian Krebs)

Hi,

Am 14.08.2011 15:55, schrieb Derick Rethans:
> On Sat, 6 Aug 2011, Ferenc Kovacs wrote:
>
>> I would like to introduce this RFC which would provide function
>> autoloading through the spl_autoload facility without userland BC
>> breakage.
>>
>> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/autofunc
>
> I understand the proposal, but I don't see any compelling reasons in the
> RFC of why we actually need autoloading for functions?

For the same reasons, why class-autoloading is useful: Loading when 
needed and avoiding unnecessary repetitive include-statements.

> For classes it
> makes sense because there is almost always a class to file mapping. For
> functions (and constants) that is not the case, so I am wondering how
> useful this function autoloading actually is.

Like classes there may be also a function-to-filename-mapping, 
especially now, since namespaces exists. It is very easy to extend the 
PSR-0 standard (lets say: PSR-0.1 ;)) so functions and constants are 
covered by it too:

- Constants and functions are in a file named after the namespace
   myNamespace\foo\bar => MyNamespace/foo/bar.php

When class-autoloading were introduced there were no ^real^ 
class-to-file-mapping too. You had to define it yourself the time, when 
you wrote your `__autoload()`-function. It's nearly the same with 
functions/constants now, except that we are away from a single function 
and that there are already ideas, that may cover such mappings already.


Or in my words: I don't see _any_ reason, why 
function-/constant-autoloading does _not_ exists ;)

>
> cheers,
> Derick
>


Regards,
Sebastian