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To: Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me>, internals@lists.php.net
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Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2015 12:42:02 +0200
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Scalar type hints and scalar type name aliases cause
 confuson
From: mike@php.net (Michael Wallner)

On 12/10/15 21:23, Andrea Faulds wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> As PHP 7 currently is, if you write this:
> 
>     public function foo(): integer {
>         return 12;
>     }
>     $bar = foo();
> 
> you'll get the following error:
> 
>     Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: Return value of foo() must be an
> instance of integer, integer returned
> 
> Similarly, if you were to write this:
> 
>     public function foo(): boolean {
>         return true;
>     }
>     $bar = $foo();
> 
> you'd get this:
> 
>     Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: Return value of foo() must be an
> instance of boolean, boolean returned
> 
...
> Alongside or instead of that, though, we can do two other things to make
> this situation better.
> 
> First, we could make type error messages use 'int' and 'bool'. This
> feels somewhat wrong to me since integer and Boolean are the proper
> English names for the types. But we do use the short names in some other
> places, like var_dump, so this isn't so bad. This way, we get this
> slightly clearer error:
> 
>     Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: Return value of foo() must be an
> instance of integer, int returned
> 
> Second, we could add a helpful note to the TypeError message when the
> type hint is for a class named 'integer' or 'boolean' and the value
> passed was an integer or Boolean, respectively. My patch (based on
> Anthony's original) for the earlier Scalar Type Hinting with Cast RFC
> did this. This would make things even clearer:
> 
>     Fatal error: Uncaught TypeError: Return value of foo() must be an
> instance of integer, int returned (did you mean to use the type hint
> 'int'?)
> 
> Even if we can't reserve the names, I hope we can do the two other
> suggestions in time for release.

Additionally, we could say "instance of class ...".


-- 
Regards,
Mike