Nullsafe Types View as Markdown

I would really like to hear your thoughts on this.

Hello, everybody!

After using nullsafe operator for a while, I have some further thoughts.
In most cases when we make type nullable, we would use nullsafe operator
if we don't know how to deal with it. This causes clogging main code with
this ? signs. Possible solution is to make nullsafe type in the first place
rather than duplicate nullsafe operator everywhere.

The idea is pretty simple.

Instead of doing this:

class Foo
{
  public ?Bar $bar = null;
}

class Bar
{
  public int $baz;
}

fas($foo->bar?->baz);
tes($foo->bar?->baz);

We can remove duplication of question mark in all usage places by making
type nullsafe.

class Foo
{
  public ??Bar $bar = null;
}

class Bar
{
  public int $baz;
}

fas($foo->bar->baz);
tes($foo->bar->baz);

Regarding union types:

class Foo
{
  public ?null|Bar $bar;

  public Baz|Tres|?null $res;
}

In first case, ?null|Bar is long form of ??Bar.
In second one, Baz|Tres|?null value of this type can be either Baz or
Tres or "safe null". Safe null is basically an pseudo-object, which for any
interaction (property acces or method call) returns same "safe null".

For union types, safe null should only be allowed in disjunction with
object.

class Foo
{
  // Error
  public ??int $int;

  // allowed
  public ??object $o;

  // allowed, at least one object
  public ?null|Bar|int|array $val;
}

Special attention requires nullsafe mixed value. It doesn't require two
question marks, but one, because mixed itself has an null inside.

class Bar
{
  // this is nullsafe mixed value
  public ?mixed $mixed;
}

$bar->mixed->property;

Safe null must behave almost like null. So that $safeNull === null is
true. If we would really like to tell apart safe null from null, some
helper function may be introduced.

About method calls, this should be allowed:

$resultOrSafeNull = $valueOrSafeNull->someMethod();

Using nullsafe operator on nullsafe value should be allowed:

$valueOrSafeNull?->method();
$valueOrSafeNull?->property;

Nullsafe types should be allowed as:

• parameter types
• return types
• property types