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Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2016 14:14:13 -0800
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Generalize support of negative string offsets
From: smalyshev@gmail.com (Stanislav Malyshev)

Hi!

> The only concern I have is that support of negative indexing will break
> symmetry with (proper) arrays, where we cannot support negative indexing.

I think that was the main source of objections to this proposal in the
past. However, as one might say, string offsets are already not
symmetrical to array offsets - e.g. you can do $array["foo"] but not
$string["foo"].

> However this is unlikely to be a significant issue. (I do however play with
> the thought of reutilizing the obsolete {} indexing syntax to act as offset
> indexing instead.)

I think it may be a good idea to start recommending using {} for string
offsets and [] for arrays. While both syntaxes may work for strings, the
intent (and expected handling of negatives, in this case) is much
clearer when different syntax is used.

-- 
Stas Malyshev
smalyshev@gmail.com