Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:67250
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: pass (pb1.pair.com: domain gmail.com designates 209.85.216.48 as permitted sender)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: ekneuss@gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <CADqTB_jeWqSCz=3v4byBdJWrHnFV4kxPCkEWVRyYwz2XOSSEag@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADqTB_gkE-2mmnE8AKWCx3rcHf8DVsgxVPO00usErnaoKjAv7g@mail.gmail.com>
 <6245ED6B-2BF7-47B7-80C0-D3B3D8E0B312@strojny.net> <CADqTB_iGghhwuKb7StpjY7xogNM76_47rxL3O7G+T0zOK2Lf3g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALJZF3hQC09_b=yzOF5F6V1ifC5wG1H4RmkTDg02awm0cC-tWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CADqTB_gxnPt-PzpaBiTmX5iW81VyssvtZW5Ugto2vOw1NsZGZg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH-PCH6oHkTweqYsY3UqeaP9Jdqkrmj1DBhxueUv5uU-U7YrPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CADqTB_gTVm1TMcg5iaUZ-WTZChdpj7s+-vLaa7BK54FA71T-Sg@mail.gmail.com>
 <51803086.6020002@sugarcrm.com> <CADqTB_inCPzQyN=VoTgVkvYN2p0gTGH-nEp=pAuL71N2P6e19Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <51805A00.4050803@lerdorf.com> <CADqTB_gv82cq_4YyLgwvt5r+NZ4h_CjqKc=bbjt1MYE6eJu28g@mail.gmail.com>
 <5180652D.1080007@lerdorf.com> <CADqTB_jeWqSCz=3v4byBdJWrHnFV4kxPCkEWVRyYwz2XOSSEag@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 1 May 2013 16:24:32 +0200
Message-ID: <CACQesk7EnXAAPtYAe=1Ev9KS1wVBBsZgZrwJ0WJZb=PUf7Bfxg@mail.gmail.com>
To: Rasmus Schultz <rasmus@mindplay.dk>
Cc: Rasmus Lerdorf <rasmus@lerdorf.com>, Stas Malyshev <smalyshev@sugarcrm.com>, 
	PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=047d7b6787ce987ea404dba8e112
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] property de-referencing
From: colder@php.net (Etienne Kneuss)

--047d7b6787ce987ea404dba8e112
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 2:35 PM, Rasmus Schultz <rasmus@mindplay.dk> wrote:

> >
> > This is a fringe feature, as evidenced by the fact that you
> > are having a hard time convincing people that it is needed
>
>
> As with anything that isn't already established and well-known, it's hard
> to convince anyone they need anything they don't understand - I think the
> barrier here is me having difficulty explaining a new idea/concept. That
> doesn't make it a fringe feature - I have already demonstrated by example
> how this would be useful in practically every mainstream framework.
>
> Properties simply don't carry
> > this information with them so a lot of things would have to change
> > internally for this to ever work
>
>
> I'm not sure what information you're referring to?
>
> Let's say for the sake of argument, I'm going to use a pre-processor to
> transform the following code:
>
> $prop = ^$user->name;
>
> var_dump($nameprop->getValue()); // => 'Rasmus'
>
> $nameprop->setValue('Bob');
>
> var_dump($nameprop->getValue()); // => 'Bob'
>
> The pre-processor output might look like this:
>
> $nameprop = new PropertyReference($user, 'name'); // $prop = ^$user->name;
>


So basically you want to introduce syntactic sugar for:

new PropertyReference($user, 'name')

The only reason being that the syntax "^$user->name" is "more static" than
new PropertyReference($user, 'name'), and thus easier to refactor? To me
they really look equivalent from a refactoring point of view.

In any case, as many already pointed out, this sounds like a lot of pain
for really little (if any) gain.


>
> var_dump($nameprop->getValue()); // => 'Rasmus'
>
> $nameprop->setValue('Bob');
>
> var_dump($nameprop->getValue()); // => 'Bob'
>
> Only the first line changes - the rest behaves and runs like any normal PHP
> code.
>
> And the PropertyReference class could be implemented in plain PHP like
> this:
>
> class PropertyReference
> {
>     private $_object;
>
>     private $_propertyName;
>
>     public function __construct($object, $propertyName)
>     {
>         $this->_object = $object;
>         $this->_propertyName = $propertyName;
>     }
>
>     public function getObject()
>     {
>         return $this->_object;
>     }
>
>     public function getPropertyName()
>     {
>         return $this->_propertyName;
>     }
>
>     public function getValue()
>     {
>         return $this->_object->{$this->_propertyName};
>     }
>
>     public function setValue($value)
>     {
>         $this->_object->{$this->_propertyName} = $value;
>     }
>
>     // and maybe:
>
>     public function getReflection()
>     {
>         return new ReflectionObject($this->_object);
>     }
> }
>
>
> You can see the above example running in a sandbox here:
>
>
> http://sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/87c57301e0f6babb51026192bd3db84ddaf84c83
>
> Someone said they didn't think this would work for accessors, so I'm
> including a running sample with a User model that uses accessors:
>
>
> http://sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/f2922b3a5dc0e12bf1e6fcacd8e73ff80717f3cb
>
> Note that the dynamic User::$name property in this example is properly
> documented and will reflect in an IDE.
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 8:43 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf <rasmus@lerdorf.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On 04/30/2013 05:17 PM, Rasmus Schultz wrote:
> >
> > > If the asterisk (or some other character) offers and easier
> > > implementation path, whatever.
> >
> > It doesn't. This is a fringe feature, as evidenced by the fact that you
> > are having a hard time convincing people that it is needed, and thus
> > shouldn't overload an existing operator. Visually it would be confusing
> > to take any well-known operator and give it a different obscure meaning.
> > But yes, syntax-wise ^ could be made to work, the implementation problem
> > I referred to is lower-level than that. Properties simply don't carry
> > this information with them so a lot of things would have to change
> > internally for this to ever work and if a clean implementation could be
> > found, like I said, adding it to the reflection functions is the proper
> > place.
> >
> > -Rasmus
> >
>



-- 
Etienne Kneuss
http://www.colder.ch

--047d7b6787ce987ea404dba8e112--