[RFC] make Reflection*#setAccessible() no-op

Hey folks,

I'm posting here to introduce a new simplification, as well as
quality-of-life-improving RFC:

https://wiki.php.net/rfc/make-reflection-setaccessible-no-op

The RFC is quite minimal, and proposes removing any runtime behavior from
ReflectionMethod#setAccessible() and
ReflectionProperty#setAccessible(), making ReflectionMethod and
ReflectionProperty accessible by default.

The rationale is:

• this API is probably coming from a copy-pasted java-ism (although I
  couldn't verify that, so I did not factor it into the RFC)
• removes the last bit of mutable state from ReflectionProperty and
  ReflectionMethod
• simplifies usage of the API
• if I'm up to no good, I don't need to actually solemnly swear that i am
  up to no good (that's stuff for fantasy books)

I don't really know what the deadline for 8.1 features is, but I assume
it's coming up quite quickly, so friendly NikiC poked me to see if this
long-standing patch of mine was still relevant.

Should be short/sweet, but I'm looking forward to your feedback.

I'm generally OK with it. The change makes sense.

What I'm unclear on is why it's not including the actual deprecation. Not doing that yet and having it just become a noop first seems fine, but it's also clear that having it throw a deprecation in the future, and presumably then having those methods be removed outright, is the long-term plan. I'm good with that too, but I don't see why the full death-cycle isn't included, and half of it is instead punted to a future RFC.

Please explain.

--Larry Garfield

Hi Marco Pivetta,

I'm posting here to introduce a new simplification, as well as
quality-of-life-improving RFC:

https://wiki.php.net/rfc/make-reflection-setaccessible-no-op

The RFC is quite minimal, and proposes removing any runtime behavior from
ReflectionMethod#setAccessible() and
ReflectionProperty#setAccessible(), making ReflectionMethod and
ReflectionProperty accessible by default.

The rationale is:

 * this API is probably coming from a copy-pasted java-ism (although I
couldn't verify that, so I did not factor it into the RFC)
 * removes the last bit of mutable state from ReflectionProperty and
ReflectionMethod
 * simplifies usage of the API
 * if I'm up to no good, I don't need to actually solemnly swear that i am
up to no good (that's stuff for fantasy books)

I don't really know what the deadline for 8.1 features is, but I assume
it's coming up quite quickly, so friendly NikiC poked me to see if this
long-standing patch of mine was still relevant.

Should be short/sweet, but I'm looking forward to your feedback.

The deadline for new features for 8.1 is July 20: https://wiki.php.net/todo/php81
(with some discretion from the release managers, e.g. for amendments to changes already made in 8.1)

I think that isAccessible should be added if any applications actually did depend on ReflectionException
being thrown for correctness - they could throw their own exception if isAccessible was false.
(e.g. for code meant to handle possibly undefined public typed properties by checking for initialization
then getting the value)

I can't actually remember needing this personally, though, since $obj->{$method}() could be used.
I've only used this to access private and protected properties/methods.

Regards,
Tyson

Hey folks,

Hey folks,

I'm posting here to introduce a new simplification, as well as
quality-of-life-improving RFC:

https://wiki.php.net/rfc/make-reflection-setaccessible-no-op

The RFC is quite minimal, and proposes removing any runtime behavior from
ReflectionMethod#setAccessible() and
ReflectionProperty#setAccessible(), making ReflectionMethod and
ReflectionProperty accessible by default.

Since feedback has been relatively minimal and positive, I will likely
start voting tomorrow, since I don't want trouble with any upcoming 8.1
deadline (plus I'll otherwise just forget).

Greets,

Marco Pivetta

http://twitter.com/Ocramius

http://ocramius.github.com/