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Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2014 18:58:15 +0000
Cc: Benjamin Eberlei <kontakt@beberlei.de>,
 Pierre Joye <pierre.php@gmail.com>,
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To: Stas Malyshev <smalyshev@sugarcrm.com>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Annotation PHP 7
From: ajf@ajf.me (Andrea Faulds)


> On 4 Nov 2014, at 18:27, Stas Malyshev <smalyshev@sugarcrm.com> wrote:
>=20
> For python-style decorators, at least the way they work in Python, =
we'd
> need to organize our function tables differently, as Python just
> replaces the function with another one while decorating, and I'm not
> sure it'd be as easy to do with PHP.

Are you sure this would be difficult? We could create a closure of the =
class method (trivial to do), pass it to a userland function upon =
creating the class (the former is easy, the =E2=80=9Cupon creating the =
class=E2=80=9D is the issue), and use the closure it returns as the =
class method. There=E2=80=99d be issue with autoloading to iron out, but =
I don=E2=80=99t think it=E2=80=99d be a problem.

> You'd have to convert all such functions to closures (or something =
that
> can be both, maybe) and have the engine be aware that function table =
now
> can store closures. And, also, inheritance may get a bit weird there. =
It
> would be very powerful, but it may not be very simple to do.

A closure is just a normal function, actually. The Closure class just =
wraps a zend_function and a this pointer. There=E2=80=99s no reason you =
couldn=E2=80=99t substitute here. I believe you could literally just =
copy the zend_function across, though there=E2=80=99d obviously be some =
complications.

Not sure about inheritance.

> Also, it is a major overkill for what annotations are commonly used -
> attaching a piece of data to an entity. In Python, decorators are very
> powerful for modifying function behavior (i.e., attaching pre/post
> conditions to functions or doing some things phpunit does is really
> easy) but it is too much for just attaching data.

This is useful for merely attaching data as well (just return the =
function passed), but it also enables manipulating the function. It =
could replace some cases of merely attaching data, too, by making the =
function do something itself, rather than having something else do =
something if a function has a certain annotation, when calling that =
function (if that makes any sense).

--
Andrea Faulds
http://ajf.me/