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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Ruby's symbols
From: rasmus@lerdorf.com (Rasmus Lerdorf)

On 01/05/2013 03:36 PM, Kris Craig wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sat, Jan 5, 2013 at 3:32 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf <rasmus@lerdorf.com
> <mailto:rasmus@lerdorf.com>> wrote:
> 
>     On 01/05/2013 03:29 PM, Kris Craig wrote:
> 
>     > In both cases, we really don't care what the actual values of
>     brown, black,
>     > and purple are.  We just want it to be unique so we can reference
>     each of
>     > them in a visually friendly way with minimal performance impact.
>      That's
>     > where I could see a valid use-case for Ruby-like symbols in PHP.
> 
>     What you are describing is just an enum. That's not really what Ruby
>     symbols are about.
> 
>     -Rasmus
> 
> 
> Ruby doesn't have native enums.  Symbols are often used in Ruby code to
> obtain the same functionality, though.

Right, but if that is the only use you can come up with for them in PHP,
then there are way simpler ways to do it. We already have an enum RFC.
https://wiki.php.net/rfc/enum

-Rasmus