Bug #55000 [Bgs]: instanceof should fail compile-time if checking for non existant class

Edit report at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=55000&edit=1 ID: 55000 User updated by: lenar at city dot ee Reported by: lenar at city dot ee Summary: instanceof should fail compile-time if checking for non existant class Status: Bogus Type: Bug Package: Scripting Engine problem Operating System: Linux PHP Version: 5.3.6 Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: Thank you for answering. But I think this is really a bug. Maybe it's different mindsets but I really think $a instanceof NonExistentClass should fail as would $a = new NonExistentClass() Sorry, I don't see the reasoning behind 'this is expected behavior'. The current behavior seems to be some evolutionary mishap at most, not something an average developer would expect from instanceof operator as it easily provides a way to shoot oneself in a leg (think simple typo). It's not really KISS. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2011-06-07 20:33:22] dsp@php.net Thank you for taking the time to write to us, but this is not a bug. Please double-check the documentation available at http://www.php.net/manual/ and the instructions on how to report a bug at http://bugs.php.net/how-to-report.php This is expected behavior. You can do something like <?php namespace A; include_once('partial-namespace-a.php'); var_dump($a instanceof Test); which can evaluate to true or false depending on the included file. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2011-06-06 16:13:04] lenar at city dot ee Description: ------------ If the use clause is missing (class/interface not found in current namespace) trigger some fatal error. This would catch many errors when the use clause is just forgotten by developer. I would understand the current behavior for those cases: 1) $a instanceof $b 2) $a instanceof 'BarClass' (not supported currently afaik) Test script: --------------- <?php namespace Test; // use FooNamespace\BarClass; $a = new \stdClass(); var_dump($a instanceof BarClass); Expected result: ---------------- Fatal error or at least some Exception. Actual result: -------------- bool(false) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=55000&edit=1