what happened to that new isset() like language

19 years ago by James Crumpton — view source

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Andi Gutmans wrote:

I don't think it's a matter of giving the engine a try. I think we first need
to make a decision what the best way to go is and then we can discuss
implementation if/what is possible. Once 5.0.0 is out I'm going to have more
time look into this.

What's the word on this?

Some of the names given were:
issetor
ifsetor
ifset
ifnull
coalesce

I'm actually kind of partial to:

$a = $foo || $bar;
$a = $foo || $bar || $xyz || $etc;

Or better yet (or maybe in addition too):

$a['foo'] ||= 'bar'; // if set do nothing, otherwise assign 'bar'

-james

19 years ago by Sebastian — view source

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Wow, it'll be just like perl! this is so great.

Andi Gutmans wrote:

I don't think it's a matter of giving the engine a try. I think we first need
to make a decision what the best way to go is and then we can discuss
implementation if/what is possible. Once 5.0.0 is out I'm going to have more
time look into this.

What's the word on this?

Some of the names given were:
issetor
ifsetor
ifset
ifnull
coalesce

I'm actually kind of partial to:

$a = $foo || $bar;
$a = $foo || $bar || $xyz || $etc;

Or better yet (or maybe in addition too):

$a['foo'] ||= 'bar'; // if set do nothing, otherwise assign 'bar'

-james

--

buddhahead@gmail.com

19 years ago by Edin Kadribasic — view source

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If we're going to add a new language construct I believe that it should
be readable and not some perl-like thingie. SQL has coalesce() functions
which returns returns first non-null argument of any number of
arguments. PHP version could return a first set argument:

$lang = coalesce($_COOKIE['lang'], $user_settings['lang'], 'en');

It shouldn't be too difficult to tell what this one does.

Edin

Sebastian wrote:

Wow, it'll be just like perl! this is so great.

Andi Gutmans wrote:

I don't think it's a matter of giving the engine a try. I think we first need
to make a decision what the best way to go is and then we can discuss
implementation if/what is possible. Once 5.0.0 is out I'm going to have more
time look into this.

What's the word on this?

Some of the names given were:
issetor
ifsetor
ifset
ifnull
coalesce

I'm actually kind of partial to:

$a = $foo || $bar;
$a = $foo || $bar || $xyz || $etc;

Or better yet (or maybe in addition too):

$a['foo'] ||= 'bar'; // if set do nothing, otherwise assign 'bar'

-james

--

--

buddhahead@gmail.com

19 years ago by Marcus Boerger — view source

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Hello Edin,

on the other hand it is not doable....not without a major slowdown.
Thus the idea of ifsetor($var, <expression>).

Why the hell do we need to discuss this over and over again?
The only way is this version. Be it with some cryptic operator like
'?:' or some function name like 'ifsetor'. Either way our internals
and the use of compiler compiler tools do not allow other stuff.
And speaking of '?:' we turned that down because it does suggest
'$a ? $a : <expr>' which is different from the functionality we
actually want: 'isset($a) ? $a : <expr>'. And actually 'ifsetor'
was only turned down because someone very very hard tried to find a
way to turn it down and could only come up with saying its name is
bad. Which i obviously absolutley disagree since its name is
perfectly clear and does not lead to confusion. Becuase it suggests
something like "IF something isSET than take it OR use the other".

regards
marcus

Sunday, October 30, 2005, 1:18:53 AM, you wrote:

If we're going to add a new language construct I believe that it should
be readable and not some perl-like thingie. SQL has coalesce() functions
which returns returns first non-null argument of any number of
arguments. PHP version could return a first set argument:

$lang = coalesce($_COOKIE['lang'], $user_settings['lang'], 'en');

It shouldn't be too difficult to tell what this one does.

Edin

Sebastian wrote:

Wow, it'll be just like perl! this is so great.

Andi Gutmans wrote:

I don't think it's a matter of giving the engine a try. I think we first need
to make a decision what the best way to go is and then we can discuss
implementation if/what is possible. Once 5.0.0 is out I'm going to have more
time look into this.

What's the word on this?

Some of the names given were:
issetor
ifsetor
ifset
ifnull
coalesce

I'm actually kind of partial to:

$a = $foo || $bar;
$a = $foo || $bar || $xyz || $etc;

Or better yet (or maybe in addition too):

$a['foo'] ||= 'bar'; // if set do nothing, otherwise assign 'bar'

-james

--

--

buddhahead@gmail.com

Best regards,
Marcus

19 years ago by James Crumpton — view source

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Evaluating an idea based on it's syntactic similarities to other languages is
complete and utter nonsense. It has nothing to with being like language Xyz. It
has to do with familiarity to language constructs. One already understands the
idea of 'this || that'. It's certainly doesn't take a stretch of the imagination
to assume that at least a beginner programmer will believe that '$a = $this ||
$that;' would return one of the two values (as opposed to the boolean it now
returns). The point is, I don't have to look up in the documentation what '||'
means, or '? :' means... or (hypothetically) what '||=' means. They are concepts
that are easy to understand and, more importantly, easy to remember.

If this concept is turned into a function, it'll be another in a long list of
functions for PHP that are difficult to remember for either their name (issetor?
ifsetor? ifset?) or the order of arguments thereof (ie. array and string
handling functions).

Sebastian wrote:

Wow, it'll be just like perl! this is so great.

Andi Gutmans wrote:

I don't think it's a matter of giving the engine a try. I think we first need
to make a decision what the best way to go is and then we can discuss
implementation if/what is possible. Once 5.0.0 is out I'm going to have more
time look into this.

What's the word on this?

Some of the names given were:
issetor
ifsetor
ifset
ifnull
coalesce

I'm actually kind of partial to:

$a = $foo || $bar;
$a = $foo || $bar || $xyz || $etc;

Or better yet (or maybe in addition too):

$a['foo'] ||= 'bar'; // if set do nothing, otherwise assign 'bar'

-james

--

--

buddhahead@gmail.com

19 years ago by Greg Beaver — view source

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James Crumpton wrote:

Evaluating an idea based on it's syntactic similarities to other
languages is complete and utter nonsense. It has nothing to with being
like language Xyz. It has to do with familiarity to language constructs.
One already understands the idea of 'this || that'. It's certainly

I'll throw the water on this one:

<?php
$c = 0;
$a = 1;
var_dump($c || $a);
?>

With the existing PHP, this script results in:

bool(true)

With your proposed change because it would return the first non-null set
variable, it will instead output:

int(0)

Changing true into false consitutes a rather severe BC break :).

Greg

19 years ago by James Crumpton — view source

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A good point certainly... I suppose it could continue to follow the
current form, evaluating $c as false and return int(1) instead of
bool(true). Though that would probably diminish it's utility for 'if set
or'. And there would be a BC break for those doing:

$a = $b || $c;

if ($a === true) {
}

But anyone doing that should probably have their head examined.

Anyway...

Regardless of what can be said about changing the behavior of '||', the
same isn't true for '||=', as it has no precedence in PHP.

-james

Greg Beaver wrote:

James Crumpton wrote:

Evaluating an idea based on it's syntactic similarities to other
languages is complete and utter nonsense. It has nothing to with being
like language Xyz. It has to do with familiarity to language constructs.
One already understands the idea of 'this || that'. It's certainly

I'll throw the water on this one:

<?php
$c = 0;
$a = 1;
var_dump($c || $a);
?>

With the existing PHP, this script results in:

bool(true)

With your proposed change because it would return the first non-null set
variable, it will instead output:

int(0)

Changing true into false consitutes a rather severe BC break :).

Greg

19 years ago by Matthew C. Kavanagh — view source

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However, in terms of precedents, there are the combined assignment
operators such as &=, +=, .=, and so on. They would suggest that

$a ||= $b;

should be equivalent to

$a = $a || $b;

So I don't think ||= in the suggested usage is intuitive. And adding
strange automagical meanings to $a = $a || $b || $c; (and so forth)
shouldn't even be discussed by sane people ;)

Regardless of what can be said about changing the behavior of '||', the
same isn't true for '||=', as it has no precedence in PHP.

19 years ago by James Crumpton — view source

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$a = $b || $c;

if ($a === true) {
}

But anyone doing that should probably have their head examined.

Anyway...

Regardless of what can be said about changing the behavior of '||', the
same isn't true for '||=', as it has no precedence in PHP.

-james

Greg Beaver wrote:

James Crumpton wrote:

Evaluating an idea based on it's syntactic similarities to other
languages is complete and utter nonsense. It has nothing to with being
like language Xyz. It has to do with familiarity to language constructs.
One already understands the idea of 'this || that'. It's certainly

I'll throw the water on this one:

<?php
$c = 0;
$a = 1;
var_dump($c || $a);
?>

With the existing PHP, this script results in:

bool(true)

With your proposed change because it would return the first non-null set
variable, it will instead output:

int(0)

Changing true into false consitutes a rather severe BC break :).

Greg

19 years ago by Sara Golemon — view source

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Evaluating an idea based on it's syntactic similarities to other
languages is complete and utter nonsense. It has nothing to with being
like language Xyz. It has to do with familiarity to language constructs.
One already understands the idea of 'this || that'. It's certainly

I'll throw the water on this one:

<?php
$c = 0;
$a = 1;
var_dump($c || $a);
?>

Changing true into false consitutes a rather severe BC break :).

How about ||| and |||= ?

19 years ago by Jasper Bryant-Greene — view source

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Evaluating an idea based on it's syntactic similarities to other
languages is complete and utter nonsense. It has nothing to with being
like language Xyz. It has to do with familiarity to language constructs.
One already understands the idea of 'this || that'. It's certainly

I'll throw the water on this one:

<?php
$c = 0;
$a = 1;
var_dump($c || $a);
?>

Changing true into false consitutes a rather severe BC break :).

How about ||| and |||= ?

How about ~ and ~= ? Shorter to type.

I know that in logic it can mean NOT, but I think nearly all PHP
programmers would know that ! serves that purpose in PHP.

--
Jasper Bryant-Greene
General Manager
Album Limited

e: jasper@album.co.nz
w: http://www.album.co.nz/
b: http://jbg.name/
p: 0800 4 ALBUM (0800 425 286) or +64 21 232 3303
a: PO Box 579, Christchurch 8015, New Zealand

19 years ago by Marcus Boerger — view source

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Hello Jasper,

Saturday, October 29, 2005, 11:34:52 PM, you wrote:

Evaluating an idea based on it's syntactic similarities to other
languages is complete and utter nonsense. It has nothing to with being
like language Xyz. It has to do with familiarity to language constructs.
One already understands the idea of 'this || that'. It's certainly

I'll throw the water on this one:

<?php
$c = 0;
$a = 1;
var_dump($c || $a);
?>

Changing true into false consitutes a rather severe BC break :).

How about ||| and |||= ?

How about ~ and ~= ? Shorter to type.

I know that in logic it can mean NOT, but I think nearly all PHP
programmers would know that ! serves that purpose in PHP.

And guess what we have that ~ operator already: php -r 'var_dump(~0);'
RTFM :-)

Best regards,
Marcus

19 years ago by Greg Beaver — view source

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Sara Golemon wrote:

Evaluating an idea based on it's syntactic similarities to other
languages is complete and utter nonsense. It has nothing to with being
like language Xyz. It has to do with familiarity to language constructs.
One already understands the idea of 'this || that'. It's certainly

I'll throw the water on this one:

<?php
$c = 0;
$a = 1;
var_dump($c || $a);
?>

Changing true into false consitutes a rather severe BC break :).

How about ||| and |||= ?

I don't think the meaning of this operator is obvious. Right now, the
only operators whose meaning are not immediately obvious (in my eyes) are:

@ - error suppression
& - make reference in some cases, bitwise and in others
^ - bitwise xor but what are you gonna do :)

For an operation as complicated as "use the first variable that exists"
I would be most comfortable with:

$d = first-existing: $a, $b, $c;

This way, no conflict with functions (parse error in previous php
versions), and it is extremely clear. The parser would look for

T_FIRSTEXISTING ':' existing_varlist

in the expression section, and of course defining existing_varlist as:

existing_varlist:
variable
| existing_varlist ',' variable
;

Greg

19 years ago by Sebastian — view source

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I still think // and //= would be the most reasonable. They involve
the least amount of syntax and // looks similar to ||

Sara Golemon wrote:

Evaluating an idea based on it's syntactic similarities to other
languages is complete and utter nonsense. It has nothing to with being
like language Xyz. It has to do with familiarity to language constructs.
One already understands the idea of 'this || that'. It's certainly

I'll throw the water on this one:

<?php
$c = 0;
$a = 1;
var_dump($c || $a);
?>

Changing true into false consitutes a rather severe BC break :).

How about ||| and |||= ?

I don't think the meaning of this operator is obvious. Right now, the
only operators whose meaning are not immediately obvious (in my eyes) are:

@ - error suppression
& - make reference in some cases, bitwise and in others
^ - bitwise xor but what are you gonna do :)

For an operation as complicated as "use the first variable that exists"
I would be most comfortable with:

$d = first-existing: $a, $b, $c;

This way, no conflict with functions (parse error in previous php
versions), and it is extremely clear. The parser would look for

T_FIRSTEXISTING ':' existing_varlist

in the expression section, and of course defining existing_varlist as:

existing_varlist:
variable
| existing_varlist ',' variable
;

Greg

--

buddhahead@gmail.com

19 years ago by Rasmus Lerdorf — view source

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Sebastian wrote:

I still think // and //= would be the most reasonable. They involve
the least amount of syntax and // looks similar to ||

// is a comment. Why don't you guys at least take a peek at the grammar
before suggesting stuff.

-Rasmus

19 years ago by Arpad Ray — view source

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For the assign-if-not-set operator, I like the idea of:

$foo ?= 'bar';

? implies a condition, and the = immediately following will raise a parse
error in older versions.

There's admittedly potential for confusion with the ternary operator, but
since that's most commonly used for conditional assignment I think the
association isn't all negative.

Arpad

19 years ago by Sebastian — view source

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But what about the use of ? as an infix operator? that wouldn't work
out so well because of the ternary ?:

For the assign-if-not-set operator, I like the idea of:

$foo ?= 'bar';

? implies a condition, and the = immediately following will raise a parse
error in older versions.

There's admittedly potential for confusion with the ternary operator, but
since that's most commonly used for conditional assignment I think the
association isn't all negative.

Arpad

--

buddhahead@gmail.com

19 years ago by Arpad Ray — view source

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Sebastian wrote:

But what about the use of ? as an infix operator? that wouldn't work
out so well because of the ternary ?:

Right, which is why I didn't suggest that.

I think Greg's idea of first-existing: is an interesting one (and by the sound
of it the most robust).

Personally I'd like coalesce() because of the SQL link, but firstset() also
appeals to me, being pretty self-explanatory and strongly reminiscent of
isset().

19 years ago by alpha@rrs@Nico Edtinger — view source

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Hi!

If you want something similar why not something that's similar to the
currently used $x = isset($x) ? $x :'x';. I don't think PHP has
something that can be written as ?? currently and it would be similar
to the current expression: $x = $x ?? 'x'; or $x ??= 'x'; Or if it
should be a single char § chould be used - altough it looks ugly.

I'd still prefer a named operator like the new instanceof. It's much
easier to read, can be found in the manual and it's meaning is clear
to none-PHP programmers.

b4n, nico

Am 30.10.2005 um 00:43 schrieb Sebastian:

I still think // and //= would be the most reasonable. They involve
the least amount of syntax and // looks similar to ||

19 years ago by Sebastian — view source

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Given that // is not acceptable, as others sarcastically reminded me,
and that this introduces new sytax, I think it might be best just to
add more functions. I don't think something like

$d = first-existing: $a, $b, $c;

is any better than first_existing($a, $b, $c), and the former happens
at the expensive of inconsistency and a higher learning curve.

19 years ago by Greg Beaver — view source

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Sebastian wrote:

Given that // is not acceptable, as others sarcastically reminded me,
and that this introduces new sytax, I think it might be best just to
add more functions. I don't think something like

$d = first-existing: $a, $b, $c;

is any better than first_existing($a, $b, $c), and the former happens
at the expensive of inconsistency and a higher learning curve.

au contraire. The first happens without a name collision with any
user-space functions.

Greg

19 years ago by Jani Taskinen — view source

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How about ||| and |||= ?

 How about a good ol' beating with a large trout? :)

 --Jani