# Uniform Variable Syntax

- Thread: https://externals.io/message/75339
- Original archive: https://news-web.php.net/php.internals/75339
- Started by Todd Ruth on 2014-07-08T15:41:48+00:00
- Messages: 2
- Reply by email to internals@lists.php.net
- More for agents: search with https://externals.io/search.md?q={query} · JSON API at https://externals.io/api · documentation at https://externals.io/llms.txt

---

## #75339 — Todd Ruth — 2014-07-08T15:41:48+00:00

URL: https://externals.io/message/75339#75339

> I've just voted "no" for this, because it introduces a tiny BC break.
> Now, I realize this is a tiny BC break, but it is just *those* that
> drive people nuts when upgrading. There is so much non-public code - a
> cursor check of Symfony and ZF is not representative.

From Andrea Faulds:
> It is a tiny BC break and it’s for PHP NEXT (i.e 6 or 7), not 5.6. Why not? It’s a 
> tiny change which will bother some people but make everyone 
> else’s life easier.

Thank you, Derick, for voting against a BC break.
I do appreciate the intention of making things more consistent.
Given that this is a parser change, I wonder if there is hope of mitigating the BC issues by providing an option to generate "new" code from "old" code.  Today, I can run "php -l" and php will tell me about syntax problems.  If php6 had a "php --convert-from 5.4.30" that would read in a file that worked in 5.4.30 and output a file that does the same thing using php6 syntax, I think that would be a Good Thing.  Perhaps it would be better as a tool on the side than as part of the main php executable.  I know such a conversion process is effectively impossible for some BC breaks; I don't know about this one.  This RFC struck me as a better candidate than usual.

Thanks for your consideration.

- Todd

---

## #75340 — Andrea Faulds — 2014-07-08T15:46:34+00:00

URL: https://externals.io/message/75339#75340 · In reply to: #75339

> Given that this is a parser change, I wonder if there is hope of mitigating the BC issues by providing an option to generate "new" code from "old" code.  Today, I can run "php -l" and php will tell me about syntax problems.  If php6 had a "php --convert-from 5.4.30" that would read in a file that worked in 5.4.30 and output a file that does the same thing using php6 syntax, I think that would be a Good Thing.  Perhaps it would be better as a tool on the side than as part of the main php executable.  I know such a conversion process is effectively impossible for some BC breaks; I don't know about this one.  This RFC struck me as a better candidate than usual.

For PHP 6, we could probably make a 2to3-style tool (2to3 is a utility for converting Python 2 to Python 3 source code) for converting from PHP 5 to PHP 6. Nikic’s PhpParser would be useful for this, and he’s already made a tool to help spot things this RFC would break.
--
Andrea Faulds
http://ajf.me/