AW: return /* by reference */ new Foo() in PHP4

Matthias Pigulla schrieb:

So, in case of "return new", wouldn't it make sense to remove the
warning as the code is 'legal'? And please, don't start a new "it's
just a friendly notice" flame war.

It's just a notice, tune your error_reporting level accordingly.

Sorry, but that is just a stupid killer argument. I thought I had
written something like "please, don't start a new it's just a friendly
notice flame war".

Jep, that would be a valid argument if one could not just adjust
error_reporting level but also the "error_throwing" behaviour. Some
people want to get notices, they just don't want to get THIS notice. So if

[throw_levels]
only_variables_can_be_returned_by_reference
= create_temp_and_shut_up_like_other_languages

could be configured this would be a valid argument ;-)
Other languages can pass objects by reference, not only variables.
And in the (conceptionally) most advanced languages like Ruby even
returning a 3 means returning an object.

A function defined as returning by reference should always quietly
create anonymous containers if the code returns non-variable-stored
values. This most prominently happens with

return new Classname();

And I personally also believe that

function &huba() { return 3; }

should implicitly be interpreted by PHP as

$internal_variable_with_random_or_no_name=3
return &$internal_variable_with_random_or_no_name;

The name doesn't matter as the caller doesn't want to know it.

May I conclude that what you really want to say is:

"Yes, return /byref/ new Foo() is bad code unless inside Foo's
constructor, $this is passed around and somebody somewhere stores yet

This somebody should be PHP.

another reference to it. Accept that you wrote broken code: return new
Foo() is wrong, it needs to be return $tmp =& new Foo()."

Shaking his head,
Matthias

I second that. Let's go to the disco ;-)

OLLi

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