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To: Pete Boere <pete@the-echoplex.net>
Cc: internals@lists.php.net
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Organization: PHP Development Team
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:03:47 +0100
Message-ID: <1358859827.1894.3158.camel@guybrush>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] __init magic method
From: johannes@php.net (Johannes =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Schl=FCter?=)

Hi,

On Tue, 2013-01-22 at 12:29 +0000, Pete Boere wrote:
> Has there ever been any discussion on an __init magic method for
> bootstraping static properties on class load?

Adding an __init method as you wish will just add complexity and gain
very little. What complexity am I talking about? Well look at this
single file:

   <?php
   class A {
       public function __init() { echo __CLASS__; }
   }
   class B extends D {
       public function __init() { echo __CLASS__; }
   }
   class C {
       public function __init() { echo __CLASS__; }
   }
   class D {
       public function __init() { echo __CLASS__; }
   }
   class E {
       public function __init() { echo __CLASS__; }
   }
   ?>

What should this print? ABCDE? Then the derived class B is initialized
before the base class D, which might have strange effects and make
debugging hard. So maybe it is ACDEB? This makes the resolution quite
complicated.

On the other hand: You are showing a goos solution, which is clear and
works well. PHP has the global scope, we don't force everything into
classes and then create Java-style static{}-madness.

johannes