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Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2015 17:32:04 +0100
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To: Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me>
Cc: PHP Internals List <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [VOTE] Combined Comparison (Spaceship) Operator
From: nikita.ppv@gmail.com (Nikita Popov)

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On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 4:27 PM, Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me> wrote:

> Hey Nikita,
>
> > On 2 Feb 2015, at 13:49, Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I've voted -1 because I think this should be a function and not an
> operator. compare($a, $b) is more obvious than $a <=3D> $b and it's not l=
ike
> writing comparison functions is such a super common use case that it need=
s
> the extra brevity of an operator. A function can furthermore be used as a
> callback, while an operator requires a wrapping closure.
>
> There=E2=80=99s no actual use for the bare comparison operation as a call=
back,
> though: usort($foo, =E2=80=98compare=E2=80=99); would just be a slow vers=
ion of sort($foo);
>

It may not be applicable to a direct sort() call, but it's useful for
higher level APIs. With a function you can create APIs of the form
`function foo(..., $comparator =3D 'compare') { ... }`, which will default =
to
the "standard" comparison function without having to specially handle it
all over the place.

Nikita

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