RC1 - Externals

20 years ago by Andi Gutmans — view source

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Hi all,

Another reminder, I'd like to roll RC1 on Monday. Everyone will be back
from OSCON and we can start the Unicode merge right afterwards.

Andi

20 years ago by Pierre-Alain Joye — view source

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On Fri, 05 Aug 2005 13:52:13 -0700
andi@zend.com (Andi Gutmans) wrote:

Hi all,

Another reminder, I'd like to roll RC1 on Monday. Everyone will
be back from OSCON and we can start the Unicode merge right
afterwards.

One thing I would like to solve in 5.1 is instanceof (or the
deprecation of is_a).

instanceof is useless much of the times as it raises a fatal error
as soon as the tested class does not exist. Since when tests raise
fatal error?

Sample script:
class test{}
$a = new test;
if ($a instanceof Foo) {
echo "not foo";
}

result:
Fatal error: Class 'Foo' not found in /home/pierre/cvs/builds/
php_head/instanceof.php on line 4

I can write a patch to "fix" it if we agree that the current
behavior is not correct.

Regards,

--Pierre

20 years ago by Pierre-Alain Joye — view source

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Hello,

I took a short look to the implementation.

instanceof_ex works as expected, no error display there. The
problem comes from the usage of class_name_reference in the parser.

class_name_reference calls zend_do_fetch_class, which raises this
error as no class is loaded.

Now I'm not sure about a clean solution, it's fine to raise a fatal
error when class_name_reference is used with new, but in the case
of instanceof, it does not make sense.

add a class_name_reference_silent? :)

--Pierre

20 years ago by Michael Wallner — view source

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Hi Pierre-Alain Joye, you wrote:

I can write a patch to "fix" it if we agree that the current
behavior is not correct.

While you're at it, could you continue on fixing the following:
(another evidence that the current "generic" behaviour is bad)

try {
// anything
} catch (NonExistantException $e) {
}

Fatal error: Class 'NonExistantException' not found

For reference:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&m=111887012528058&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&m=109404375329280&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&m=109218461900310&w=2

Regards,

Michael - < mike(@)php.net

20 years ago by Marcus Boerger — view source

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Hello Michael,

Monday, August 8, 2005, 6:26:30 PM, you wrote:

Hi Pierre-Alain Joye, you wrote:

I can write a patch to "fix" it if we agree that the current
behavior is not correct.

While you're at it, could you continue on fixing the following:
(another evidence that the current "generic" behaviour is bad)

try {
// anything
} catch (NonExistantException $e) {
}

Fatal error: Class 'NonExistantException' not found

This is a very different topic. While "instanceof missingclass" can never
result to any problem the former violates hard coded requirements. Thus i
think dropping the message from instanceof is acceptable - but i am not
going to decide this so don't take my second thoughts on this one too
serious.

Best regards,
Marcus

20 years ago by Pierre-Alain Joye — view source

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On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 18:26:30 +0200
mike@php.net (Michael Wallner) wrote:

Hi Pierre-Alain Joye, you wrote:

I can write a patch to "fix" it if we agree that the current
behavior is not correct.

While you're at it, could you continue on fixing the following:
(another evidence that the current "generic" behaviour is bad)

try {
// anything
} catch (NonExistantException $e) {
}

Fatal error: Class 'NonExistantException' not found

You try to declare (if it get catched) a non existent class. Not
really related to instanceof, it's like a new nonexistantclass;

--Pierre

20 years ago by Wez Furlong — view source

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Maybe a little late throwing my 2 cents in, but here they are anyway.
If you're writing an app that can optionally use a component that is
not present, there is nothing conceptually wrong with calling
instanceof to determine if that support is present; PHP should not
blow up. If the class is not loaded, then the object can't possibly
be an instance of it, therefore the operator should return false.

--Wez.

You are wrong because __autoload() is called and you can load the class
on the-fly. The only problem is if the class does not exist in your code
base, in which case, your application should blow up!

Andi

At 07:44 AM 8/9/2005 +0200, Pierre-Alain Joye wrote:

On Mon, 08 Aug 2005 14:43:25 -0700
andi@zend.com (Andi Gutmans) wrote:

I don't agree that instanceof on a class which doesn't exist
should work. It doesn't do so in other languages (or at least not
in Java/C++(dynamic_cast)) nor does it really seem to make a lot
of sense and be useful. Sounds more like an edge case you have
hit with some weird code which can probably be written
differently.

You cannot compare PHP with Java and C++ in this case, sorry. They
work differently for known reason (compiled being one).

If you have a method, which could be a factory, or the behaviors
depends on which object it gets, you have now 2 choices:

Accept to live with a possible fatal error

Include all single classes you are going to check, even if you
will use none of them.

The 3rd possibility, fix instanceof.

Today, fetching of classes in the language is very generic, and
they have to exist. I see very few cases where this would not be
true if you are writing a regular application. In those few cases
where you are doing something extremely weird, you can use
reflection to introspect an object.

Agreed, that's fetch_class is not opportun for instanceof. My point
is not about the fetch_class is done but the way instanceof works.
Reflection is terribly overkilled for such a need, and slow.

There is no way this would be changed for RC1 (or PHP 5.1)
because it's a significant change which would affect many places
and not only instanceof. I personally think it shouldn't be
changed at all. If you're referencing classes/exceptions in your
code that don't exist, then something is very bogus with your
code. Don't use a NonExistantException if that could happen, use
Exception...

Agreed here too, not related to instanceof though.

--Pierre

20 years ago by Daniel Convissor — view source

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if(class_exists('MyFoo') && $obj instanceof MyFoo) { }

Unfortunately, class_exists() still calls __autoload(). Un-deprecating
is_a() seems to be an easy way to resolve this situation.

--Dan

--
T H E A N A L Y S I S A N D S O L U T I O N S C O M P A N Y
data intensive web and database programming
http://www.AnalysisAndSolutions.com/
4015 7th Ave #4, Brooklyn NY 11232 v: 718-854-0335 f: 718-854-0409

20 years ago by Marcus Boerger — view source

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Hello Daniel,

RTFM: try class_exists(..., false)

marcus

Wednesday, August 10, 2005, 12:38:49 AM, you wrote:

if(class_exists('MyFoo') && $obj instanceof MyFoo) { }

Unfortunately, class_exists() still calls __autoload(). Un-deprecating
is_a() seems to be an easy way to resolve this situation.

--Dan

--
T H E A N A L Y S I S A N D S O L U T I O N S C O M P A N Y
data intensive web and database programming
http://www.AnalysisAndSolutions.com/
4015 7th Ave #4, Brooklyn NY 11232 v: 718-854-0335 f: 718-854-0409

Best regards,
Marcus