Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:64656
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: error (pb1.pair.com: domain toolpark.com from 195.49.42.12 cause and error)
Message-ID: <50EBD4C4.8090703@toolpark.com>
Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:11:48 +0100
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Thunderbird/17.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: internals@lists.php.net
References: <CAF+90c_girfbcPBb8rCV3bPNR2Hsd5gyRPB+VArCfqjPPqG5DQ@mail.gmail.com> <CAF+90c9=HgRLHv4o=5dGkQzZPC5Q0tbPC8GD9AZ13Jwkr0pOcw@mail.gmail.com> <4ED7146272E04A47B986ED49E771E347BB3D6ABCB3@Ikarus.ameusgmbh.intern>
In-Reply-To: <4ED7146272E04A47B986ED49E771E347BB3D6ABCB3@Ikarus.ameusgmbh.intern>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Alternative typehinting syntax for accessors
From: lars.schultz@toolpark.com (Lars Schultz)

Am 08.01.2013 08:56, schrieb Christian Stoller:
> But the way 'nullable' properties are defined is not very intuitive and unclean, in my opinion. Stas has already mentioned that.
> `public DateTime $date = NULL;` // this looks like the property is initialized with null, but it does not show that the property is 'nullable'

To me this makes perfect sense. It takes up the syntax php has been 
using for method-definitions. A syntax we would be using to create a 
classic setter method if there wasn't a fancy new one.

public function setDate(DateTime $date = NULL) {
	$this->date = $date;
}

Anything other than this would result in an inconsistency. Having 
accepted that syntax previously and now introducing yet another one, 
would be confusing and unnecessary.

Although, as Stas has pointed out, *not* allowing NULL for a property 
will not prevent it from being NULL...depending on wether it has been 
initalized.