[RFC] [VOTE] Class Constant Visibility

Who decides if/when we should restart voting?

I don't believe we've ever formalized that aspect. I know in the past
sometimes RFC authors will notice something wrong and fix it, then
restart voting themselves.

Hi Sean,

Hi Sean, internals,

While I support this RFC, it seems that the actual implementation is
still under discussion.

In particular, whether the RFC is going to allow protected constants
in an interface is not clear.

In the text of the RFC, on one line it says: "This RFC propose PHP
support class constant visibility that mirror the behaviour of method
and property visibility." This would imply that protected constants
are not allowed, as protected methods are not allowed in interfaces.

Just below it says: "//Interfaces only support protected/public const,
and a compile time error will be throw for privates" Which says
clearly that protected constants would be allowed.

Please can you update the text of the RFC?

Unfortunately, that may need a restart of the voting :-\ However that
should just be a formality as it seems to be a popular RFC.

cheers
Dan

--
Hi!

That is an unfortunate mistake on my part. The proper way to adjust
visibility of a trait from a class constant is the following.

trait myTrait {
public const FOO = 'bar'
}

class myClass {
use myTrait { FOO as protected; }
}

class myClass {
use myTrait { FOO as private; }
}

We should not allow anything besides public in trait, this mirrors the design of methods.

If this is right (mind just sending an ACK to make sure I got it right this time) I
will update the RFC. Who decides if/when we should restart voting?

thanks

--

I think you may have misunderstood. Traits should be able to have protected and private constants. The issue that Dan pointed out is with an interface having a protected constant in the example code, contradicting what was written prior in the RFC about mirroring the current behavior of method and property visibility.

Interfaces should only be allowed to have public constants. Protected constants would infer that the interface knows something about implementation, which doesn’t make sense for an interface. I think the RFC should be updated to remove this ambiguity.

I’m not sure if this would require the vote to be restarted, as I doubt anyone who voted yes would now vote no with this change.

Regards,
Aaron Piotrowski

I will update the RFC. Who decides if/when we should restart voting?

"The PHP RFC rules is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual
rules" as there are no set decision makers or rules enforcers.

The rules set down for this scenario are, in theory, pretty clear:

Based on the result of the votes and the discussion there are three possible outcomes:

A serious issue with your RFC needs to be addressed: update the status of your RFC
page and its section on https://wiki.php.net/RFC to “Under Discussion” and continue
again from step 5.

But in practice what is a 'serious issue' is not defined.

I think it is almost always right to restart a vote for anything other
than the most minor change as:

i) It avoids setting a precedent where an RFC is changed substantially
while under vote.

ii) It avoids anyone being able to complain that either what was
implemented was not what they voted for, or for people to be able to
ask that the 'missing' behaviour be implemented as a bug-fix.

And yes, in this case the RFC restarting the vote could be considered overkill.

I can't see anyone actually changing their mind due to the text being
clarified, and so the result of the vote will be overwhelming support,
again. But following the rules scrupulously when the outcome is clear,
makes it harder for people to bend the rules when the outcome isn't as
clear.

cheers
Dan

OK. thanks. I'll try to find time to do this on next week.
In any case I'll give a chance to review the future patch.
Somebody might get other good improvement ideas and we don't have to hurry
now :)

Thanks. Dmitry.

Hi Dmitry!
Thanks for the quickly reply.

That is a bummer that the patch isn't gonna work! But yes, please go
ahead and take it on! You don't have to show me the PR (I am happy with
what ever you choose to do). There are some
tests so once every passes I will be excited to see it merge :)

Hi Sean,

Although the RFC is accepted, the patch has to be significantly reworked.
Probably, it's going to be better and faster if I do it myself.
Let me know, if you are agree (I'll do this when I have time, and show
you
PR before commit).

Thanks. Dmitry.

Hey list,

Time for a simple RFC (in theory)!

I would like to add visibility modifiers to class constants, and then
as a nice added bonus give more info from the Reflection API (constants
now are a dedicated class so nice things like doc comments)

https://wiki.php.net/rfc/class_const_visibility

thanks!