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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC]Discuss] Syntax for Arrow Functions
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

On 30 May 2017 18:58:14 BST, Levi Morrison <levim@php=2Enet> wrote:
>Internals,
>
>The previous discussion thread has died down significantly and so I'd
>like to start a new one to refocus=2E This message has some redundant
>information by design so people don't have to reference the other
>thread so much=2E
>
>Based on the discussion there are a few different syntax choices
>people liked=2E Overall it's a feature that people seem to want but
>everyone seems to prefer a different syntax choice=2E

I was just pondering alternative approaches to stop the =3D> token being a=
mbiguous, and wondered if surrounding the whole expression with braces coul=
d work:

{ =3D> $bound * 2 }
{ $a, $b =3D> $a * $b }

I believe this eliminates the ambiguity with array notation, and is more c=
oncise than pretty much every alternative=2E I'm my opinion, grouping the a=
rguments and body would make it more readable in context, as well=2E

The only potential difficulty with parsing would be that this would techni=
cally be valid:

if ( $test ) { $a =3D> $a * 5 };

Because it means this:

if ( $test ) { function ($a) { return $a * 5; }; }

It's not ambiguous, but I don't know if this and similar constructs would =
cause problems with backtracking in the parser=2E Worst case, they could pr=
obably be defined as illegal, since it's pretty hard to construct a use cas=
e for such a thing=2E

Regards,

--=20
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]