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Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2015 21:09:43 +0000
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To: Marc Bennewitz <dev@mabe.berlin>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] PHP6 artifact - binary strings
From: ajf@ajf.me (Andrea Faulds)

Hi,

> On 8 Feb 2015, at 20:10, Marc Bennewitz <dev@mabe.berlin> wrote:
>=20
> Since PHP-5.2.1 we have an artifact of PHP-6 in the engine means we =
can define binary strings but such definitions haven't any effect.

Yes. That=E2=80=99s because PHP 6 was going to have Unicode strings by =
default, alongside binary strings (to PHP 5 and 7, just =E2=80=9Cstrings=E2=
=80=9D).

These =E2=80=9Cbinary strings=E2=80=9D are just strings.

> So what we can define is the following:
>=20
> $str =3D "str";
> $bin =3D b"b\0i\0n";
> $str2bin =3D (binary)$str;
>=20
> One of the biggest issue is that currently ALL strings will be handled =
as ASCII-7 compatible strings on type-juggling but they aren=E2=80=99t.

In the rare case you need to prevent type juggling of binary data, you =
could wrap it in an object.


> It would be very appreciated if PHP could respect such binary =
declaration:
>=20
> * use binary string comparison on compare a binary string to any other =
string
> * don't convert binary strings into integers on array keys
> * allow bitwise operators on binary strings without casting to integer

This would break existing code which was made =E2=80=9CPHP 6-ready=E2=80=9D=
.

Also, we already support bitwise operations on strings, I don=E2=80=99t =
know what you=E2=80=99re on about there...

--
Andrea Faulds
http://ajf.me/