# [RFC][DISCUSSION] PHP Namespace in core - Thread: https://externals.io/message/109651 - Original archive: https://news-web.php.net/php.internals/109651 - Started by michal.brzuchalski@gmail.com on 2020-04-15T12:29:21+00:00 - Messages: 19 - Reply by email to internals@lists.php.net - More for agents: search with https://externals.io/search.md?q={query} · JSON API at https://externals.io/api · documentation at https://externals.io/llms.txt --- ## #109651 — michal.brzuchalski@gmail.com — 2020-04-15T12:29:21+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109651 Hi internals, I hope you're doing well. I'd like to announce the PHP Namespace in core RFC for discussion. The RFC is authored by me together with George Peter Banyard and it's purpose is nothing more like to allow the use of PHP Namespace in the core. The RFC is described at https://wiki.php.net/rfc/php-namespace-in-core Best Regards, Michał Brzuchalski --- ## #109652 — G. P. B. — 2020-04-15T12:34:20+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109652 · In reply to: #109651 On Wed, 15 Apr 2020 at 14:29, Michał Brzuchalski < michal.brzuchalski@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi internals, > > I hope you're doing well. > > I'd like to announce the PHP Namespace in core RFC for discussion. > The RFC is authored by me together with George Peter Banyard and it's > purpose > is nothing more like to allow the use of PHP Namespace in the core. > > The RFC is described at https://wiki.php.net/rfc/php-namespace-in-core > > Best Regards, > Michał Brzuchalski > Well this is unfortunate that another similar RFC just has been announced. However, we are open to feedback and will monitor the other thread too. Best regards George P. Banyard --- ## #109656 — Derick Rethans — 2020-04-15T13:51:45+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109656 · In reply to: #109651 > Hi internals, > > I hope you're doing well. > > I'd like to announce the PHP Namespace in core RFC for discussion. > The RFC is authored by me together with George Peter Banyard and it's > purpose > is nothing more like to allow the use of PHP Namespace in the core. I think a "may" is not a clever way forwards. I think that if you want to use the PHP namespace for engine specific things (like Attribute/Token), then they must all use that, or none. cheers, Derick -- PHP 7.4 Release Manager Host of PHP Internals News: https://phpinternals.news Like Xdebug? Consider supporting me: https://xdebug.org/support https://derickrethans.nl | https://xdebug.org | https://dram.io twitter: @derickr and @xdebug --- ## #109659 — Marcio Almada — 2020-04-15T16:38:49+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109659 · In reply to: #109651 > > Hi internals, > > I hope you're doing well. > > I'd like to announce the PHP Namespace in core RFC for discussion. > The RFC is authored by me together with George Peter Banyard and it's > purpose > is nothing more like to allow the use of PHP Namespace in the core. > > The RFC is described at https://wiki.php.net/rfc/php-namespace-in-core > > Best Regards, > Michał Brzuchalski Hello, Even though I'm fond to the idea of languages having the official stdlib contained into a single space, there seems to be no practicality on a \PHP namespace usage at this point IMMO. We would be in a situation where things are either mixed in and out the new namespace - Should I `use function PHP\{json_encode, json_decode}` or was it in the root??? - or everything that already exists must first receive an alias into this new namespace, to allow consistency... but then there would probably be no plans ever to actually move existing stuff into the new prefix in the future. With the lack of a feasible roadmap, I'd rather vote on doing nothing for now :/ Thanks, Márcio --- ## #109660 — michal.brzuchalski@gmail.com — 2020-04-15T16:49:44+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109660 · In reply to: #109659 Hi Marcio, śr., 15 kwi 2020 o 18:39 Marcio Almada napisał(a): > > […] > > Hello, > > Even though I'm fond to the idea of languages having the official > stdlib contained > into a single space, there seems to be no practicality on a \PHP namespace > usage > at this point IMMO. > > We would be in a situation where things are either mixed in and out > the new namespace > - Should I `use function PHP\{json_encode, json_decode}` or was it in > the root??? - or > everything that already exists must first receive an alias into this > new namespace, to allow > consistency... but then there would probably be no plans ever to > actually move existing stuff > into the new prefix in the future. > > You've misunderstood the idea. Standard library functions classes etc. are not language features. It's not a purpose of this RFC to move existing functions from the standard library but to allow core language features to use it. Described examples show benefit in use for symbols tightly coupled to features PHP as a language delivers. Most of the standard library function can be replaced by implementations in PHP or by wrapping around a C library. The features tightly coupled with the language is for eg. the Reflection mechanism, PhpToken class as described. Upcoming PhpAttributes for which proposal is a work in progress. Those all features will not likely be moved to PECL and this RFC proposal is to allow features like that to use PHP namespace. Cheers, Michał Brzuchalski --- ## #109661 — michal.brzuchalski@gmail.com — 2020-04-15T17:07:53+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109661 · In reply to: #109656 Hi Derick, śr., 15 kwi 2020 o 15:51 Derick Rethans napisał(a): > > > > […] > > I think a "may" is not a clever way forwards. I think that if you want > to use the PHP namespace for engine specific things (like > Attribute/Token), then they must all use that, or none. > You mean if we want to introduce PHP namespace we should also propose immediately to move engine specific things (like Attribute/Token) into proposal? If so then we should search for the rest of engine specific things which will include then many interfaces and classes like: 1. Traversable, Iterator, IteratorAggregate - cause these are used in foreach statements 2. ArrayAccess - cause this one is required to accept r/w by dimension (offset* - methods) 3. Serializable, __PHP_Incomplete_Class ?! - cause this is used in serializing/deserializing and this is bound to magic methods in classes 4. stdClass - cause this is a default class of the object which is produced when an array is cast to (object) 5. Closure, Generator - cause these are also tightly coupled with the engine 6. Throwable, etc. - just for consistency with the rest from https://www.php.net/manual/en/reserved.classes.php and https://www.php.net/manual/en/reserved.interfaces.php Is that what you mean? Cheers, Michał Brzuchalski --- ## #109663 — Andrea Faulds — 2020-04-15T17:24:05+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109663 · In reply to: #109660 Hi, Michał Brzuchalski wrote: > Hi Marcio, > > śr., 15 kwi 2020 o 18:39 Marcio Almada napisał(a): > > > […] > You've misunderstood the idea. Standard library functions classes etc. are > not language features. > It's not a purpose of this RFC to move existing functions from the standard > library but to allow core language features > to use it. Described examples show benefit in use for symbols tightly > coupled to features PHP as a language delivers. > > Most of the standard library function can be replaced by implementations in > PHP or by wrapping around a C library. > The features tightly coupled with the language is for eg. the Reflection > mechanism, PhpToken class as described. > Upcoming PhpAttributes for which proposal is a work in progress. > > Those all features will not likely be moved to PECL and this RFC proposal > is to allow features like that to use PHP namespace. We already have PHP language features relying on classes in the root namespace (Closure, Throwable, ArrayAccess, etc) so the point Marcio makes about inconsistency is nonetheless valid I think. Thanks, Andrea --- ## #109665 — G. P. B. — 2020-04-15T19:36:25+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109665 · In reply to: #109656 > > > > […] > > I think a "may" is not a clever way forwards. I think that if you want > to use the PHP namespace for engine specific things (like > Attribute/Token), then they must all use that, or none. > > cheers, > Derick > > -- > PHP 7.4 Release Manager > Host of PHP Internals News: https://phpinternals.news > Like Xdebug? Consider supporting me: https://xdebug.org/support > https://derickrethans.nl | https://xdebug.org | https://dram.io > twitter: @derickr and @xdebug > > -- > > Just to clarify is this limited to new features or should this also be applied to current engine features? If only the former I personally don't mind making it a requirement. Best regards George P. Banyard --- ## #109666 — G. P. B. — 2020-04-15T19:39:06+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109666 · In reply to: #109659 > > […] > > Hello, > > Even though I'm fond to the idea of languages having the official > stdlib contained > into a single space, there seems to be no practicality on a \PHP namespace > usage > at this point IMMO. > > We would be in a situation where things are either mixed in and out > the new namespace > - Should I `use function PHP\{json_encode, json_decode}` or was it in > the root??? - or > everything that already exists must first receive an alias into this > new namespace, to allow > consistency... but then there would probably be no plans ever to > actually move existing stuff > into the new prefix in the future. > > With the lack of a feasible roadmap, I'd rather vote on doing nothing for > now :/ > > Thanks, > Márcio > > -- > > > > As mentioned by Michal, JSON is not a core engine extension, you can even compile a version of PHP without JSON support therefore compared to the parallel discussion this extension would not be included in the PHP namespace. Best regards George P. Banyard --- ## #109667 — G. P. B. — 2020-04-15T19:53:40+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109667 > Hi, > > Michał Brzuchalski wrote: > > […] > napisał(a): > > […] > namespace > > […] > are > > […] > standard > > […] > in > > […] > > We already have PHP language features relying on classes in the root > namespace (Closure, Throwable, ArrayAccess, etc) so the point Marcio > makes about inconsistency is nonetheless valid I think. > > Thanks, > Andrea > > -- > > > The proposal is not to move everything into the PHP namespace. I would even argue that these interface make more sense in the global namespace as they are meant to be available to all users to implement and extend. This is in strong contract to the Reflection API which, at least, should not be extended by end users IMHO as it provided features which are heavily tied to the engine and how it is implemented. Now as Reflection is already an existing feature the objective here is not to move the current one into the PHP namespace and alias it but possibly provide a Reflection 2.0 API which is design with the benefit of hindsight. A more relevant example, in my eyes, is the current proposal of attributes. Engine attributes like JIT, NoJIT, and possibly in the future Deprecated and/ or Final are features provided by the engine which should not have the possibility to be extended by end users, only consumed. Another example I can come up are scalar objects. If PHP starts to provided scalar objects, I would imagine that they it won't be possible to extend them and only consume them, in the same way as the current functions provided by ext/standard. Or maybe a new API to interact with stream and/or the file system. I hope this clarifies the intent behind the RFC. Best regards George P. Banyard --- ## #109669 — Derick Rethans — 2020-04-15T20:27:20+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109669 · In reply to: #109665 > > > > […] >it's > > […] >want > > […] > >Just to clarify is this limited to new features or should this also be >applied to current engine features? >If only the former I personally don't mind making it a requirement. Everything introduced for PHP 8 and later. I can't think of such an engine related item like Attribute / Token from earlier versions however. Can you? cheers, Derick --- ## #109670 — G. P. B. — 2020-04-15T20:38:03+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109670 · In reply to: #109669 > On 15 April 2020 20:36:25 BST, "G. P. B." > wrote: > > […] > > > Everything introduced for PHP 8 and later. I can't think of such an engine > related item like Attribute / Token from earlier versions however. Can you? > > cheers, > Derick > Other than ext/Reflexion, not really. I've amended the RFC [1] to use "must" instead of "may". Best regards George P. Banyard [1] https://wiki.php.net/rfc/php-namespace-in-core --- ## #109680 — Rowan Tommins — 2020-04-16T10:54:31+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109680 · In reply to: #109667 > > > […] > > > The proposal is not to move everything into the PHP namespace. > I would even argue that these interface make more sense in the global > namespace as they are meant to be available to all users to implement > and extend. > > [...] > > A more relevant example, in my eyes, is the current proposal of attributes. > Engine attributes like JIT, NoJIT, and possibly in the future Deprecated > and/or Final are features provided by the engine which should not have the > possibility to be extended by end users, only consumed. > I don't really understand the distinction here. We currently have many interfaces which exist to trigger "magic" in the Engine, some of which even have special restrictions on how they can be used (e.g. you can't actually implement Throwable or Traversable). If we want to prevent users extending an attribute like JIT or NoJIT, we can just mark the relevant class "final", and while extending ArrayAccess or Countable is possible it isn't a particularly common use case, so that doesn't seem like a meaningful difference. If ArrayAccess didn't exist yet, and was proposed after this RFC was accepted, my interpretation of the text would be that it must be placed in the \PHP namespace, because it is "tightly coupled to the internals/engine of the PHP interpreter". Regards, -- Rowan Tommins [IMSoP] --- ## #109716 — Benjamin Eberlei — 2020-04-20T12:06:46+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109716 · In reply to: #109651 Hi Michał, George, On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 2:29 PM Michał Brzuchalski < michal.brzuchalski@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi internals, > > I hope you're doing well. > > I'd like to announce the PHP Namespace in core RFC for discussion. > The RFC is authored by me together with George Peter Banyard and it's > purpose > is nothing more like to allow the use of PHP Namespace in the core. > > The RFC is described at https://wiki.php.net/rfc/php-namespace-in-core I think the php namespace for core is important to have, especially for features that have more than a single, but multiple classes, grouping them in a PHP internal namespace will be helpful to avoid weird prefixing. With the Attributes RFC in mind, an earlier draft has used the namespace PHP\Attributes that a few contributors rightly mentioned is a bad idea without project wide standardization first. For my taste, the RFC is great except the "A chance to clean up poor design/naming decisions" section. It goes into politics and controversial ideas that essentially are outside the scope of the RFC itself. So while SPL and Reflection would benefit if we had the namespace before those APIs, I am not sure they drive down the point of why we need this: a.) Instead of changing SPL I believe most would pretty much agree that we just need a complete replacement with a better API (pointing towards phpds here might be a better example) b.) Moving some new parts of Reflection into the namespace while keeping others in the main namespace is extremely confusing, and we shouldn't confuse users that way. Realistically this is an issue thats not going to be changed. I do like the Frame example, similar to token_get_all returning an array, debug_backtrace could benefit from an object based representation. I would reluctantly call it a "toy example", it is an actual example or not? greetings Benjamin > > > Best Regards, > Michał Brzuchalski --- ## #109739 — Mike Schinkel — 2020-04-21T05:29:27+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109739 · In reply to: #109716 I have been wondering for a while why PHP does not officially recognize a \PHP namespace. The inconsistency people have mentioned feels like a fair tradeoff for allowing new core classes to be cleanly-named and easier to understand. And a \PHP namespace would allow RFCs to never need worry about conflicting with userland class names again. The one thing I would ask the authors: - Why limit it to "tightly coupled to the PHP engine?" - Why not just say "any new core classes that are approved to use it?" After all, sometimes a namespace is just a namespace. Seems like a winner to me. -Mike --- ## #109740 — michal.brzuchalski@gmail.com — 2020-04-21T07:19:56+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109740 · In reply to: #109739 Hi Mike wt., 21 kwi 2020 o 07:29 Mike Schinkel napisał(a): > I have been wondering for a while why PHP does not officially recognize a > \PHP namespace. > > The inconsistency people have mentioned feels like a fair tradeoff for > allowing new core classes to be cleanly-named and easier to understand. > > And a \PHP namespace would allow RFCs to never need worry about > conflicting with userland class names again. > > The one thing I would ask the authors: > > - Why limit it to "tightly coupled to the PHP engine?" > - Why not just say "any new core classes that are approved to use it?" In the past, there were some proposals which treated about core namespace proposing to include most of the core symbols in a structured way. These proposals always failed for some reason. This proposal tries to convince internals to use PHP namespace in the core for tightly coupled to the PHP engine types which could be placed there without a risk to be unbundled in a future what would cause a need to rename them back. Therefore we think that these along with the arguments in the proposal are the best ones to agree for now. BR, Michał Brzuchalski --- ## #109741 — michal.brzuchalski@gmail.com — 2020-04-21T07:31:06+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109741 · In reply to: #109716 Hi Benjamin, pon., 20 kwi 2020 o 14:06 Benjamin Eberlei napisał(a): > Hi Michał, George, > > On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 2:29 PM Michał Brzuchalski < > michal.brzuchalski@gmail.com> wrote: > > > […] > > > I think the php namespace for core is important to have, especially for > features that have more than a single, but multiple classes, grouping them > in a PHP internal namespace will be helpful to avoid weird prefixing. > > With the Attributes RFC in mind, an earlier draft has used the namespace > PHP\Attributes that a few contributors rightly mentioned is a bad idea > without project wide standardization first. > > For my taste, the RFC is great except the "A chance to clean up poor > design/naming decisions" section. It goes into politics and controversial > ideas that essentially are outside the scope of the RFC itself. So while > SPL and Reflection would benefit if we had the namespace before those APIs, > I am not sure they drive down the point of why we need this: > > a.) Instead of changing SPL I believe most would pretty much agree that we > just need a complete replacement with a better API (pointing towards phpds > here might be a better example) > b.) Moving some new parts of Reflection into the namespace while keeping > others in the main namespace is extremely confusing, and we shouldn't > confuse users that way. Realistically this is an issue thats not going to > be changed. > > I do like the Frame example, similar to token_get_all returning an array, > debug_backtrace could benefit from an object based representation. I would > reluctantly call it a "toy example", it is an actual example or not? > The example with the Frame is something I'm thinking about to propose and implement. About the changing SPL. Bear in mind that the current proposal is only about an agreement to allow the use of PHP namespace in the core. @Benjamin: You suggest to skip the examples and arguments regarding poor design/naming decisions with Reflection API ? Those examples are put in the RFC to help understand the argumentation and the result of this RFC should be the agreement that any future RFC proposing an introduction of the tightly coupled with the PHP engine symbol (and to mention the ones with PhpToken and PhpAttribute and family could be perfect candidates) should not worry for the proposal to be rejected because of the use of PHP namespace in core symbols. BR, Michał Brzuchalski --- ## #109808 — G. P. B. — 2020-04-23T12:16:55+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#109808 · In reply to: #109741 Hello everyone, We've updated the RFC [1] by rewriting it in part and trying to add more details /context and trying to address some other concerns which came up. Hoping for some more feedback before planning on moving this to a vote. Best regards George P. Banyard [1] https://wiki.php.net/rfc/php-namespace-in-core --- ## #110228 — michal.brzuchalski@gmail.com — 2020-05-21T05:12:50+00:00 URL: https://externals.io/message/109651#110228 · In reply to: #109651 Hi Internals, I'm really sorry for the long delay on this topic. I think it's time to vote since there seems like no further discussion is needed. *So head's up!* I plan to open this topic for a vote. The vote will be simple Yes/No and requires to be accepted by 2/3 votes as always. Voting will open Tomorrow on *May 22nd around 06:00 UTC* and will remain open for 14 days until *4th of June.* Cheers, -- Michał Marcin Brzuchalski /For the fame and glory of PHP!!/ śr., 15 kwi 2020 o 14:29 Michał Brzuchalski napisał(a): > Hi internals, > > I hope you're doing well. > > I'd like to announce the PHP Namespace in core RFC for discussion. > The RFC is authored by me together with George Peter Banyard and it's > purpose > is nothing more like to allow the use of PHP Namespace in the core. > > The RFC is described at https://wiki.php.net/rfc/php-namespace-in-core > > Best Regards, > Michał Brzuchalski