# Inconsistency in PHP 8.5 deprecation of terminating case with semicolon

- Thread: https://externals.io/message/128839
- Original archive: https://news-web.php.net/php.internals/128839
- Started by Juliette Reinders Folmer on 2025-10-15T00:08:20+00:00
- Messages: 3
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## #128839 — Juliette Reinders Folmer — 2025-10-15T00:08:20+00:00

URL: https://externals.io/message/128839#128839

Dear Theodore and list,

I've been looking into the "Deprecate semicolon after case in switch 
statement" PHP 8.5 deprecation [1] with the aim of adding a sniff for 
this to the PHPCompatibility standard and I'm noticing an oddity for 
which I would like to clarify whether this is intentional or an oversight.

As demonstrated in the example code provided in the deprecation RFC, 
both switch `case` condition statements, as well as `default` 
statements, can be ended with a semicolon.

So when I first read the RFC, I interpreted the proposal to include both 
`case` as well as `default`, as, in my mind, `default` is just a special 
`case` in a switch.

However, the RFC explicitly only talked about deprecating the use of a 
semicolon after a `case` statement and the implementation has followed 
this to the letter. [2]

The net result of this, is that you can now have a `switch` statement 
with semicolons terminating `case` statements and `default` statements, 
where the former (`case`) will result in a deprecation notice, while the 
latter (`default`) will not. For an example, see [3]

This feels inconsistent to me and counter to the intention of the RFC, 
which is stated to be:

 > Case statements followed by a semicolon can cause confusion, as a 
developer may think they behave differently in some way from regular 
case statements (e.g. preventing fallthrough), when they do not.

Which leaves me wondering what the reason was not to _also_ deprecate 
the use of a semicolon to terminate a `default` statement in a switch ?
I can't find any discussion about this in the original mailing list 
thread [4].

Anyone would care to clarify ?

Smile,
Juliette

1: 
https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecations_php_8_5#deprecate_semicolon_after_case_in_switch_statement
2: 
https://github.com/php/php-src/commit/5f8d648af6ef4e29a3c7f2b2029d08466c12bc6f
3: https://3v4l.org/liFIK/rfc#vgit.master
4: https://externals.io/message/126000

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## #128840 — Theodore Brown — 2025-10-15T04:21:52+00:00

URL: https://externals.io/message/128839#128840 · In reply to: #128839

> Dear Theodore and list,
>
> I've been looking into the "Deprecate semicolon after case in switch statement" PHP 8.5 deprecation [1]
> with the aim of adding a sniff for this to the PHPCompatibility standard and I'm noticing an oddity for
> which I would like to clarify whether this is intentional or an oversight.
>
> As demonstrated in the example code provided in the deprecation RFC, both switch `case` condition
> statements, as well as `default` statements, can be ended with a semicolon.
>
> So when I first read the RFC, I interpreted the proposal to include both `case` as well as `default`,
> as, in my mind, `default` is just a special `case` in a switch.
>
> However, the RFC explicitly only talked about deprecating the use of a semicolon after a
> `case` statement and the implementation has followed this to the letter. [2]
>
> The net result of this, is that you can now have a `switch` statement with semicolons
> terminating `case` statements and `default` statements, where the former (`case`) will
> result in a deprecation notice, while the latter (`default`) will not. For an example, see [3]
>
> This feels inconsistent to me and counter to the intention of the RFC, which is stated to be:
>
> > […]
>
> Which leaves me wondering what the reason was not to _also_ deprecate the use of a semicolon
> to terminate a `default` statement in a switch ? I can't find any discussion about this in the
> original mailing list thread [4].
>
> Anyone would care to clarify ?

Hi Juliette,

Thank you for pointing out the discrepancy. You are correct that `default` is just a special
case statement, and the intention in the RFC was to output the deprecation message for default cases
as well (the example in the RFC included a default case followed by a semicolon to highlight this).

The fact that a deprecation message isn't shown for default cases is an oversight on my part
when I implemented the RFC. The merged implementation correctly updated the AST for default
case statements followed by a semicolon to support the deprecation message, but I failed to
notice that when the compiler code loops over switch cases, there is a `continue` statement
when handling the default case which prevents reaching the code for the deprecation.

I opened a follow-up pull request to fix this, which can hopefully be merged before
PHP 8.5 is released: https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/20172

Kind regards,  
Theodore

>
> Smile,  
> Juliette
> 
> [1]: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecations_php_8_5#deprecate_semicolon_after_case_in_switch_statement
> [2]: https://github.com/php/php-src/commit/5f8d648af6ef4e29a3c7f2b2029d08466c12bc6f
> [3]: https://3v4l.org/liFIK/rfc#vgit.master
> [4]: https://externals.io/message/126000

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## #128843 — Juliette Reinders Folmer — 2025-10-15T13:10:53+00:00

URL: https://externals.io/message/128839#128843 · In reply to: #128840

> 
>
> > […]
> Hi Juliette,
>
> Thank you for pointing out the discrepancy. You are correct that `default` is just a special
> case statement, and the intention in the RFC was to output the deprecation message for default cases
> as well (the example in the RFC included a default case followed by a semicolon to highlight this).
>
> The fact that a deprecation message isn't shown for default cases is an oversight on my part
> when I implemented the RFC. The merged implementation correctly updated the AST for default
> case statements followed by a semicolon to support the deprecation message, but I failed to
> notice that when the compiler code loops over switch cases, there is a `continue` statement
> when handling the default case which prevents reaching the code for the deprecation.
>
> I opened a follow-up pull request to fix this, which can hopefully be merged before
> PHP 8.5 is released: https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/20172

Hi Theodore,

Ah! That explains it. Bugs happen to the best of us. Glad to hear I 
didn't misunderstand the intention of the RFC.

Thanks for clarifying and for the new PR to update the deprecation 
implementation. Here's me hoping it will be merged soon.

Smile,
Juliette