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Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 09:22:44 +0200
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To: Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Scalar Type Hinting With Casts (re-opening)
From: pierre.php@gmail.com (Pierre Joye)

hi Andrea,

On Sun, Jul 13, 2014 at 3:57 AM, Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me> wrote:
> Good evening,
>
> PHP=E2=80=99s type hinting system is rather incomplete as it does not sup=
port scalars, only arrays, callables and objects. In 2012, Anthony Ferrara =
created an RFC which proposed type hinting for scalar types (int, float, bo=
ol, string and resource) with casting, with behaviour nearly the same as th=
at of zend_parse_parameters. Sadly, he later left PHP internals and withdre=
w his RFCs.
>
> Since I am very much in favour of scalar type hints, I=E2=80=99ve updated=
 the patch to master and made some minor improvements, and I am re-opening =
the RFC with the intent to try and get it into PHP 5.7. The patch is mostly=
 there. It needs some more tests and there are some edge cases I need to de=
al with, but it otherwise works, and I expect I can finish fixing it up ver=
y soon.
>
> The RFC is here: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/scalar_type_hinting_with_cast
>
> A pull request is here: https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/717
>
> I=E2=80=99m hoping I can get this into PHP 5.7. I think scalar type hinti=
ng would be a valuable addition to PHP=E2=80=99s existing type hinting syst=
em.

very nice work, thanks!

Some comments or wishes. I know these points have been discussed
already in the other threads but I still think it is worth posting
that here and (re) consider it.

To me argument types handling should match what we already do for
classes, strict handling. I asked many users at various conferences or
large companies using PHP and this is also what they wish. Indeed I am
not saying that all users wish that (who am I to say that? :) but I
feel like there is a large majority expecting this behavior.

The argument saying that it is not the PHP way is somehow incorrect
here, given that we already do that for classe. The type jungling
makes sense in implementations, as it always was but argument passing
and validation have been a source of pain since very long. I could
imagine one exception with the "numeric" type, which could accept
anything and got converted to integer/numeric values, like "1235ab" or
other weird things.


Cheers,
--=20
Pierre

@pierrejoye | http://www.libgd.org