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Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2015 13:17:07 +0100
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To: Dmitry Stogov <dmitry@zend.com>
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	Guilherme Blanco <guilhermeblanco@gmail.com>, Pierrick CHARRON <pierrick@webstart.fr>, 
	Alexander Lisachenko <lisachenko.it@gmail.com>, Pierre Joye <pierre.php@gmail.com>, 
	Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com>, Andi Gutmans <andi@zend.com>, Joe Watkins <pthreads@pthreads.org>, 
	Yasuo Ohgaki <yohgaki@ohgaki.net>, Sebastian Bergmann <sebastian@php.net>, 
	Stanislav Malyshev <smalyshev@gmail.com>, Rasmus Lerdorf <rasmus@lerdorf.com>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Annotations in PHP7
From: pajousek@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Pavel_Kou=C5=99il?=)

On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 12:07 PM, Dmitry Stogov <dmitry@zend.com> wrote:
> hi,
>
> During discussion of different ways of implementing "Design by Contract" we
> got an idea of using annotations.
>
> BTW: annotations are useful by their own and may be used for different
> purposes. Support for annotations was proposed long time ago:
>
> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/annotations
> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/annotations-in-docblock
> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/reflection_doccomment_annotations
>
> HHVM already implemented similar concept
>
> http://docs.hhvm.com/manual/en/hack.attributes.php
>
> I made a quick and dirty PoC that shows how we may implement annotations in
> PHP7 and how powerful they may be :
> https://gist.github.com/dstogov/dbf2a8f46e43719bd2c2
>
> The test there is self explainable. Of course, annotations just provide a
> way to add metadata, but doesn't define attribute names or the ways they
> are going to be used. Only Reflection API to read.
>
> There are still a lot of technical problems that have to be solved.
> Right now, we just need to answer a question - if we like this in PHP7?
> Thought and opinions are welcome...
>
> Thanks. Dmitry.

Hello,

I'd personally suggest you to consider that the Annotations could be
classes, something along the lines of
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa288454%28v=vs.71%29.aspx#vcwlkattributestutorialanchor1

IMHO it will allow for more usecases and such than simple arrays.

Regards
Pavel Kouril