[RFC][VOTE] Improve array to string conversion

9 years ago by francois@php.net — view source

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Hi,

Starting the vote for https://wiki.php.net/rfc/array-to-string.

Please note that, while the initial RFC proposed both options of either
fully supporting the feature, or disabling it, the voting choices are now :

either definitely disabling array to string conversion,
or keep current behavior as-is.

Vote ends March 6, 00:00 (UTC).

Regards

François

9 years ago by Xinchen Hui — view source

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Hey:

Hi,

Starting the vote for https://wiki.php.net/rfc/array-to-string.

Please note that, while the initial RFC proposed both options of either
fully supporting the feature, or disabling it, the voting choices are now :

either definitely disabling array to string conversion,

or keep current behavior as-is.

Vote ends March 6, 00:00 (UTC).
replace E_NOTICE with E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR??

it's a huge BC break.....

I vote -1 on this.

thanks

Regards

François

--

--
Xinchen Hui
@Laruence
http://www.laruence.com/

9 years ago by Patrick ALLAERT — view source

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Le lun. 23 févr. 2015 à 17:06, François Laupretre francois@php.net a
écrit :

Hi,

Starting the vote for https://wiki.php.net/rfc/array-to-string.

Please note that, while the initial RFC proposed both options of either
fully supporting the feature, or disabling it, the voting choices are now :

either definitely disabling array to string conversion,

or keep current behavior as-is.

Vote ends March 6, 00:00 (UTC).

Regards

François

As said in the original thread [1], I'm not in favor of breaking the
execution in the case of "Array to string" conversion with an
E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR with no "opt-in" choice for that (which implies an
important BC break).

However, maybe there is a better option for those that want to be 'more
"strict" and "explicit"' (quoting Pascal Martin [2]).

Having the option to bail out at any kind of errors (E_NOTICE,
E_WARNING,...) might fit that as well.
gcc has a similar switch:
"-pedantic-errors: Like -Wpedantic, except that errors are produced
rather than warnings."

This could be easily developed thanks to a configuration switch (off by
default) or an "error_reporting"-like bit field instructing on which error
level to bail out additionally.

By doing so, we would let people opt-in for that kind of behaviour.

Thoughts?

[1] http://marc.info/?t=142470775700006
[2] http://marc.info/?l=php-internals&m=142559407125491

9 years ago by Patrick ALLAERT — view source

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Le jeu. 5 mars 2015 à 23:20, Pascal Martin, AFUP mailing@pascal-martin.fr
a écrit :

Le 23/02/2015 17:06, François Laupretre a écrit :

Starting the vote for https://wiki.php.net/rfc/array-to-string.

Hi,

We talked about this with other people at AFUP and a great majority of
us agrees that the current behavior of array to strings conversions is
not quite useful

Nor are all the following operations:

$useOfUnexistingVariableIsOkToContinueExecution = $variableNotSet;

$obj = new stdClass();
$useOfUnexistingPropertyIsOkToContinueExecution = $obj->notFound;

$computingWithObjectIsOkToContinueExecution = 42 + new stdClass();

$array = array(42);
$useOfUnexistingOffsetIsOkToContinueExecution = $array[42];

$int = 42;
$usingANumberAsAnArrayIsFineNoNotice = $int["foo"];

$null = NULL;
$usingANonObjectAsAnObjectIsOkToContinueExecution = $null->notAnObject;

$resource = fopen("/etc/hosts", "r");
$resourceToStringConversionIsOkToContinueExecution = (string) $resource;

Running the above would produce:

PHP Notice: Undefined variable: variableNotSet in - on line 2

Notice: Undefined variable: variableNotSet in - on line 2
PHP Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$notFound in - on line 5

Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$notFound in - on line 5
PHP Notice: Object of class stdClass could not be converted to int in - on
line 7

Notice: Object of class stdClass could not be converted to int in - on line
7
PHP Notice: Undefined offset: 42 in - on line 10

Notice: Undefined offset: 42 in - on line 10
PHP Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in - on line 16

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in - on line 16

-- and, for several of us, when we started getting

notices with PHP 5.4, it actually showed us there were bugs in our
applications.

Which confirms that turning notices 'On' would allow anyone to fix code
that may seems suspect.

So, we are +1 on this.

Basically, even if notices are already bringing some useful information,
we feel being more "strict" and "explicit" than that might help, here.

Why suddenly changing that specific notice, without deprecation, to one
that stop the execution and without "opt-in" for it? (and according to the
patch, only in some "array to string conversion", not all?)

I'm about to post another suggestion in a fork of this discussion which
might fit anyone, stay tuned!

Cheers,
Patrick