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Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:16:05 -0400
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Subject: Re: [RFC] skipping optional parameters
From: weierophinney@php.net (Matthew Weier O'Phinney)

On 2012-04-17, Stas Malyshev <smalyshev@sugarcrm.com> wrote:
> One of the annoying things I've encountered in working with PHP was
> dealing with functions having long optional parameter lists, especially
> if you need to change only the last one - you have to copy all the
> defaults. Full named params implementation would solve it, probably, but
> before we have that here's an easier solution for part of the problem:
>
> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/skipparams
>
> Basically, it allows you to do this:
>
> create_query("deleted=0", "name",,, /*report_errors*/ true);

I actually had a need for either this or named parameters this past
week, and as such would love to see one or the other in place. While I'd
personally prefer named arguments, this approach would work in most
places I've needed them.

My one comment, which others have raised, is readability of multiple
commas -- TBH, at first glance it has the appearance of a mistake. I
think those suggesting a keyword such as "default" make a good point in
this regard -- it makes it 100% clear that you want the default value
for the argument in that position. This also presents an improvement
over current usage, as you're not hard-coding values in your function
calls themselves -- particularly as the defaults could change in future
refactors.

-- 
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
Project Lead            | matthew@zend.com
Zend Framework          | http://framework.zend.com/
PGP key: http://framework.zend.com/zf-matthew-pgp-key.asc