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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Treats raw types if used as object
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

On 09/08/2016 14:49, David Rodrigues wrote:
> In this case, I suggests to have some handler to treat raw types as
> objects in an indirect way. Objects are not created, but it methods
> are called on demand statically.
>
> For instance:
>
> // It should be declared by PHP internally (default handler).
> register_type_handler('string', \SplString::class);
>
> // It is an user defined handler, should extends SplInteger.
> register_type_handler('int', \Types\MyInt::class);

Hi David,

You and your friend are not alone in thinking this would be a nice 
feature to have, and the good news is that a few people have already 
worked on proof-of-concept implementations.

Most notably, there's https://github.com/nikic/scalar_objects which has 
a "register_primitive_type_handler" function almost identical to your 
example.

A few people have taken that and played around with what a good set of 
methods to implement would be, e.g. 
https://github.com/rossriley/php-scalar-objects and 
https://github.com/RikudouSage/scalar-objects

Right now, there's no concrete plan for if/how/when this might end up a 
proper part of the language, though. It might be a good idea to search 
one of the archives of this list to see where previous discussions ended up.

Regards,
-- 
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]