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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Proposal: Raise severity of undefined constants
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

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Ferenc Kovacs wrote on 28/01/2015 12:13:
>
>     E_DEPRECATED is likely to be even more ignored than E_NOTICE, so
>     would be a step backwards; my whole assumption is that most people
>     getting the message are not using a deprecated feature, but
>     accidentally mis-typing a constant or keyword. I'd be happy with
>     raising it to E_WARNING to make it more noticeable, though, if we
>     don't think removing the functionality is acceptable.
>
>
> turn it into E_WARNING if we are planning to keep the feature, turn it 
> into E_DEPRECATED if we want to remove the feature later on.

I see absolutely no advantage in changing this into E_DEPRECATED, as 
it's even more likely to be hidden or ignored than E_NOTICE.

There are actually two parts to the message: that you used an undefined 
constant, and that PHP interpreted this as you wanting a string. If you 
really intended a string, then "deprecated" is relevant; but if you 
intended a keyword or constant, then there is nothing to deprecate, it's 
just an error.

If we want to keep the string fallback for now, how about we raise the 
severity to E_WARNING, and change the message to mention deprecation?
e.g.
Warning: Use of undefined constant foo - assumed 'foo', but this 
behaviour will change in a future version

Regards,
-- 
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]

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