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Subject: $a{} stuff
From: derick@php.net (Derick Rethans)

Hello,

due to a little discussion on IRC I noticed that the following code
works:

<?php
	$a = "foobar";
	$a{strlen($a)-1};
?>

now IMO the offset should only be a simple integer value, as this is a
little bit too much magic to me (and perlish). Although the code above
can have it's use, the following does also work fine:

file1.php
<?php
	return 4;
?>

file2.php
<?php
	$a = "foobar";
	echo $a{include 'file1.php'};
?>

echos 'a'.

I think this sideeffect should be disallowed as it adds a lot of
unreadableness to code. (I do als vagely remember a discussion a year or
something ago which resulted in something like "the offset to a string
should be an integer only, and not for example {1..4} or {-1}". Can't
find this though in the archives.

regards,
Derick