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Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 10:33:11 +0200
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Subject: [PHP-DEV] Make try/catch brackets optinal
From: ivan.enderlin@hoa-project.net ("Ivan Enderlin @ Hoa")

Hi all,

After a day and a quite lot of (hot) answers, we can state that making=20
try/catch braces optional has a weak probability to appear in PHP. But=E2=
=80=A6

This discussion shows a leak of consistency in the PHP syntax regarding=20
braces. Language constructions (restricted to control structures) such=20
as: if, else, elseif, while, do/while, for, foreach, see their braces as =

optional. And other more =E2=80=9Ccomplex=E2=80=9D language constructions=
 (that were=20
introduced some years later) such as: try/catch and switch/case, see=20
their braces required.

I assume that making braces optional for switch/case is very strange.=20
It's really a _block_ of cases. If you have only one case instruction in =

your switch, maybe you should rewrite it.

But the case (no joke) of try/catch is different. Most of the people who =

were against my =E2=80=9Cproposal=E2=80=9D said it is =E2=80=9Cerror-pron=
e=E2=80=9D, it will introduce=20
=E2=80=9Cbugs that hard to detect=E2=80=9D. But=E2=80=A6 wait, PHP has go=
to (and who use it?)!=20
No kidding, PHP allows you to write very nice code quickly. It is=20
entirely part of the developer to adopt its own coding rules, but PHP=20
has made choices in the past and it results in an inconsistency=20
regarding to its syntax. We should take a decision: either make all=20
braces required but we all know that it is not possible due to backward=20
compatibility, either make all braces optional when it is necessary.

Making braces optional for try/catch does:
+ not break backward compatibility;
+ add consistency in the PHP syntax;
=C2=B1 offer a new way to write buggy programs but no more than with othe=
r=20
control structures (think about goto ;-)).

I see more + than - here. Am I wrong?

Moreover, in parallel, a new idea has been landing: introducing the=20
=E2=80=9Crescue=E2=80=9D keyword as a shortcut/replacement of try/catch, =
such as:
$foo =3D callThatCouldThrow() rescue 'oof';
Is it possible to chain it, such as:
$foo =3D callThatCouldThrow() rescue anotherCallThatCouldThrow() rescue=20
'oof?';

Maybe we should start another topic because it could be a nice idea.

Finally, I would like to clarify my proposal: I just wanted to discuss=20
about making try/catch braces optional and not criticize PHP syntax=E2=80=
=A6

Best regards :-).

--=20
Ivan Enderlin
Developer of Hoa
http://hoa.42/ or http://hoa-project.net/

PhD. student at DISC/Femto-ST (Vesontio) and INRIA (Cassis)
http://disc.univ-fcomte.fr/ and http://www.inria.fr/

Member of HTML and WebApps Working Group of W3C
http://w3.org/