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Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 00:20:35 +0100
To: internals@lists.php.net
Message-ID: <185707F6-9B57-4103-90C2-21246510FC67@gmail.com>
Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re=3A_=5BPHP-DEV=5D_=5BRFC=5D_Void_Re?= =?UTF-8?Q?turn_Type_=28v0=2E2=2C_re=C3=B6pening=29?=
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

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On 15 October 2015 20:33:04 BST, Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me> wrote:
>> Obviously, type hints for internal functions are a bit weird anyway,
>but
>> there's no reason to assume that every function documented as void
>would
>> suddenly be annotated in the Engine as such and start returning
>notices.
>
>Why shouldn't it? For the scalar types, internal and userland functions behave almost the same.

Just for the same reason that an existing function that uses bare "return;" won't automatically be considered "void" - nobody has  explicitly decided that that's the intent.

Sure, internal functions whose value shouldn't be used *could* be marked void, and those would start raising Notices if that was part of void's behaviour. But there would only be a blizzard of Notices if someone bulk updated every function in core which happens to return null, which doesn't seem like an automatic part of creating a void return behaviour.  Especially if the whole point is that "void" signifies something more than "always returns null".

Since it's been mentioned a couple of times, I'd like to say that although the documentation is official, I think it should be considered descriptive not prescriptive - if it labels something as void, but the Engine doesn't consider it so, the manual would be wrong, not the Engine.

Regards,
-- 
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]
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