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Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2015 22:16:54 +0200
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Array dereferencing of scalars
From: cmbecker69@gmx.de (Christoph Becker)

Rowan Collins wrote:

> Christoph Becker wrote on 09/06/2015 14:09:
>> I wonder where these coercion rules are described.  The manual has a
>> section about "Converting to array"[1] which actually describes casting,
>> and is obviously not what is happening when the subscript operator (as
>> the langspec calls it[2]) is applied to non-null scalars.
> 
> There's a manual page on "Type Juggling" which is probably more
> relevant: http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.type-juggling.php
> 
> Interestingly, it notes that:
> 
>> The behaviour of an automatic conversion to array is currently undefined.

Thanks.  I've missed that.  It explains the current behavior.

> So, at least as far as that reference point is concerned, any change in
> behaviour could be justified (if agreed by RFC) as defining what was
> previously undefined.

I would welcome that.  In my opinion, undefined behavior is better
avoided in a language specification.

-- 
Christoph M. Becker