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Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2016 22:57:30 +0200
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Subject: Class Constant Visibility BC Break
From: dev@mabe.berlin (Marc Bennewitz)

Hi,


I encountered a problem of my library with the new class constant 
visibility functionality.

The problem is that I'm using ReflectionClass::getConstants() to detect 
class constants but I'm only interested in public constants.

Before class constants were public by definition but now it can be 
private and protected, too.

I know the new methods ReflectionClass::getReflectionConstant[s]() are 
available to detect exactly what I need and that's fine!

But of course using ReflectionClass::getConstants() no longer returns 
public class constants by default.


So for me this is a BC break but it wasn't listed in the RFC.

I don't know if it was discussed before but it could be avoided by 
adding an argument to ReflectionClass::getConstants() to filter by 
visibility which defaults to public.


Thoughts?


PS: I'm talking my library to emulate enumerations 
https://github.com/marc-mabe/php-enum/blob/master/src/Enum.php#L295-L327

but this BC break happens to all using ReflectionClass::getConstants() 
for public constants only e.g. accessing values later with constant().


Cheers

Marc