[RFC][Vote] iterable_to_array() and iterable_count()

Hi Christoph,

I wanted to keep it within the standard 14 days long period
both for discussion and voting.
If there are no objections (no votes yet), we can shorten it
i.e. to 2018-.07-16 23:00 UTC - would that work for you?

Thanks!
M.

2018-07-03 23:52 GMT+02:00 Christoph M. Becker cmbecker69@gmx.de:

Hello internals,

The RFC for adding iterable_to_array() and iterable_count() is now open
for
voting:

https://wiki.php.net/rfc/iterable_to_array-and-iterable_count

Thanks for the RFC, Michael!

You can vote for each function separately.

Voting will close on 2018-07-17 12:00 UTC.

That's nasty close to the scheduled branching of PHP-7.3 (i.e. feature
freeze). Assuming an appropriate (depending on the outcome of the
iterable_count() vote) PR or patch could be merged on 01:00 UTC, I'd
still wait for the Travis and Appveyor builds which may take an hour.
That would be 4pm for me to actually start the branching and tagging
process – still fine, but what if there would be any further delay?

I would prefer that any votes on RFCs targeting 7.3 would end some hours
or even day earlier than 2018-07-17 12:00 UTC, if possible.

--
Christoph M. Becker

2018-07-05 22:35 GMT+02:00 Nikita Popov nikita.ppv@gmail.com:

I voted against both functions. Jordi already explained why iterable_count()
is questionable, so let me add a comment regarding iterable_to_array().

Essentially my gripe is that I'm not convinced of the usefulness of this
function and am concerned that it might be encouraging bad practices. In
particular:

• As the RFC already mentions, iterable_to_array() can be replaced by a
  simple and in my eyes very clear one-liner. This pattern would have to be
  extraordinarily common to justify adding a function for it.

Now imagine a large codebase with 50 occurences. Then multiply this by 1000
projects. That is a lot of "simple oneliners" with a lot of place for
potential errors.

In the end this is not different from is_countable() which was
unanimously accepted.

The pattern is not common yet because iterable is not common yet. One of the
show-stoppers is incompatibility with array functions (or array hints
in general).

• The operation iterable_to_array() should be rare. Please do not accept
  iterable arguments if you are not just iterating over them. If your
  operation requires conversion to array, then directly accept an array,
  otherwise you are making false promises. If you want to use an array
  function on an iterable -- don't. Reimplement the function to work with
  iterables or use a library that does.

Unfortunately, this is not true in real world, mostly due to BC and
compatibility.

• The very close names of iterator_to_array() and iterable_to_array() are
  somewhat confusing. For type declarations "iterable" and "Iterator" are
  quite distinct due to different capitalization, but the functions are hard
  to distinguish at a glance.

I disagree, but I also believe this is a matter of taste/preference.

An additional issue is that iterable_to_array() preserves the behavior of
iterator_to_array() to preserve iterator keys by default, which is a big
footgun, especially in combination with generators. However, I also
understand that using a different default would be even worse, due to the
confusion with iterator_to_array().

Whether it's true or not, thatt's what iterator_to_array() does, and
the behavior is neither deprecated nor adviced against in documentation.
If you want to deprecate keyed iterator_to_array(), let's do it in 7.4,
but I don't see how this makes this very RFC "bad", just by preserving
behavior for consistency.
Right now, it sounds like advocating the introduction of yet another
inconsistency, something that PHP is very often being disliked for.

Thanks,
M.

Hi,

the RFC has been declined.

Thank you for voting, and especially thanks to Jordi and Nikita
for explaining their No vote, unlike the rest of No-voters.

Thank you,
M.

2018-07-09 22:13 GMT+02:00 Pedro Magalhães mail@pmmaga.net:

Hello internals,

The RFC for adding iterable_to_array() and iterable_count() is now open
for
voting:

https://wiki.php.net/rfc/iterable_to_array-and-iterable_count

You can vote for each function separately.

Voting will close on 2018-07-17 12:00 UTC.

Thank you,
M.

Hi,

I'd like to point out that a cast to array could almost replace the first
one-liner example in the RFC, with the exception of the generator case. It
may be an issue that (array)$iterator has a different behavior than
iterator_to_array($iterable) but that would be a separate discussion.

Regards,
Pedro