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Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2013 13:03:59 -0500
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Alternative typehinting syntax for accessors
From: steve@mrclay.org (Steve Clay)

On 1/8/13 2:56 AM, Christian Stoller wrote:
> 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'

Much agreed. After instantiation, these shouldn't behave differently:

public     $foo = null;
public Foo $foo = null;

Sure, method signatures have special behavior based on a default value, but IMO:
1. those semantics aren't entirely intuitive to begin with
2. property initializers aren't method sigs
3. the semantics would apply only to some properties


>      public DateTime? $date;
>
> In C# the question mark after a type is a short hand for a generic Nullable type.

I like that it's an established practice of doing exactly what we're trying to do.

Could we not just make it obvious?:

public Foo|null $foo;


Steve Clay
-- 
http://www.mrclay.org/