Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:79783
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: pass (pb1.pair.com: domain gmx.de designates 212.227.15.15 as permitted sender)
Message-ID: <5491A46F.6050102@gmx.de>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 16:42:39 +0100
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.3.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Stanislav Malyshev <smalyshev@gmail.com>, 
 Christoph Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de>,
 "guilhermeblanco@gmail.com" <guilhermeblanco@gmail.com>, 
 Rowan Collins <rowan.collins@gmail.com>
CC: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
References: <548FEE87.7020602@gmail.com> <549009EE.7040808@fischer.name> <D5013CDA-61F7-467F-B896-F627D8DBA156@ajf.me> <54907683.2070509@gmail.com> <8AB6896C-D5DB-4471-BBD5-60784B2FC1BE@gmail.com> <54907EDE.6020500@gmail.com> <4E4F7392-154C-4282-8D5D-553194D09DCE@gmail.com> <CAFp73XtbFXAUpNE6fKFMLO8uq80hD-5perXfFs8dKY=MG0SqZA@mail.gmail.com> <5490DC22.2080605@gmx.de> <5490DD19.2080502@gmail.com> <5490E226.3070202@gmx.de> <5490E6F2.4050109@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <5490E6F2.4050109@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC][VOTE] Objects as Keys
From: cmbecker69@gmx.de (Christoph Becker)

Stanislav Malyshev wrote:

>> Yes, but it is already possible to call an object's method in array key
>> context, so in combination with an appropriate interface the same can be
>> accomplished.
> 
> No, it's not possible. It is possible to call object method in an
> expression, and then use the result of the expression as an array key.
> But to do that you'd have to check that you're dealing with the object
> and the call the special method.

Sorry for expressing myself imprecisely.  Thanks to Rowan this is
hopefully clarified now, see
<http://marc.info/?l=php-internals&m=141882255826352&w=2>.

> Looks like you don't understand why PHP has magic methods - since your
> argument applies to every one of them. Why have __toString if you can
> just call object method? Why have __call if you could just check if
> method exists and call a special method if it doesn't? Why have __isset
> if you could just call special method on an object and pass it the
> property name? Of course, it's "just sugar". All programming languages
> are "just sugar" by that definition.

I'm neither arguing against having magic methods and other (syntactic)
sugar in general, nor against having __hash() or __toKey() in
particular.  It's perfectly fine for me, if the RFC passes.

>> I didn't mean to argue against the RFC, but merely wanted to point out
>> that one could have object hashes without the proposed magic method
>> (albeit in a more contrived way).
> 
> You could have *everything* in a more contrived way. PHP 2 was Turing
> complete, I am sure. Were we just wasting time these last 15 or so years
> because everything was done in PHP since then was already possible,
> albeit "in a more contrived way"? Or maybe there's some value in making
> the ways significantly less contrived? IMO, that's the whole point of
> what we're doing here.

I do really appreciate your work, and I enjoy having a more expressive
language.  I justed wanted to point out Guilherme's apparent
misinterpretation of your RFC, see
<http://marc.info/?l=php-internals&m=141882026225496&w=2>.

-- 
Christoph M. Becker