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Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2015 11:14:10 -0800
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] A different user perspective on scalar type declarations
From: rasmus@lerdorf.com (Rasmus Lerdorf)

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On 02/26/2015 10:49 AM, Dan Ackroyd wrote:
> In most applications, the part of the code that is exposed to the
> outside world and has to convert strings or unknown types into known
> types is a very small layer at the outside edge of the application.
>=20
> The vast majority of code written for non-trivial applications has no
> contact with the outside world. Instead it only communicates to other
> layers inside the application where the types required are fully
> known, and so the parameters passed should already be in the correct
> type. And so type coercion is at best unneeded, and usually not
> wanted.

Looking through some very large code bases I am involved with this
argument falls down on two main points:

1. There is a lot of data coming from memcache/mysql/pgsql as strings
that is not typed.

2. There are quite a few objects being shuffled around interchangeably
with strings and making use __toString magic.

Type coercion is needed in both cases here. This is in the backend code
far for user input. It would take a whole lot of refactoring to be able
to turn on strict for this code. Especially getting rid of all use of
__toString objects. It would require force-casts to make this backend
code work in strict mode and then we are back to square one.

-Rasmus


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