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Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2016 14:59:10 +0000
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Countable Type Hint
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

On 17/11/2016 14:06, Josh Di Fabio wrote:
> Apologies, I thought you were simply proposing the following:
>
> interface Countable
> {
>     function count(): int;
> }

No, what Craig is proposing is a type hint that covers both the existing 
Countable interface and primitives which are naturally countable.

If the union types RFC had passed, you'd be able to say 
"array|Traversable $foo"; a recent RFC lets you instead say "iterable 
$foo". The suggestion is to add a keyword which similarly acts as 
"array|Countable $foo".

Unfortunately, as others have pointed out, it can't be called just 
"countable", because that's the name of the existing interface. The 
principle seems sound though, assuming we don't want to go down the 
route of treating arrays as implementing interfaces.

Regards,
-- 
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]