Newsgroups: php.internals
Path: news.php.net
Xref: news.php.net php.internals:91043
Mailing-List: contact internals-help@lists.php.net; run by ezmlm
Received-SPF: pass (pb1.pair.com: domain gmail.com designates 74.125.82.44 as permitted sender)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: julienpauli@gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <56AE8735.4070901@gmail.com>
References: <56A3A01F.1020500@php.net> <CAF+90c-rh5uss4xTjbvvjr6PO5iAYaQ=DQRbVNr+h1kMm8HW9A@mail.gmail.com>
 <56AE8735.4070901@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2016 10:40:57 +0100
Message-ID: <CAMUwpuQ61QFUFQK4+Wchya8MA_j5PtWAD9sXX=Rz4EMA-XCyOg@mail.gmail.com>
To: Stanislav Malyshev <smalyshev@gmail.com>
Cc: Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com>, Internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Generalize support of negative string offsets
From: jpauli@php.net (Julien Pauli)

On Sun, Jan 31, 2016 at 11:14 PM, Stanislav Malyshev
<smalyshev@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

I totally agree here, having 2 different syntaxes for 2 different ways of using
the array for strings is pretty nice.


Julien