Req #33879 [Opn->Csd]: $string["otherstring"] = something | should produce a warning

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=33879&edit=1 ID: 33879 Updated by: requinix@php.net Reported by: sigge at hystrix dot se Summary: $string["otherstring"] = something | should produce a warning -Status: Open +Status: Closed Type: Feature/Change Request -Package: Feature/Change Request +Package: *General Issues PHP Version: 5.0.4 -Assigned To: +Assigned To: requinix Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: PHP issues a warning "Illegal string offset '<offset>'" as of 5.4. http://3v4l.org/dj9pf Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2005-07-27 01:47:39] sigge at hystrix dot se Description: ------------ I recently had a bug in my code that overwrote an array with a string. I missed the [], it happens. But debugging was hard, and I had a bunch of $array["foo"] = "bar"; when $array had been overwritten by a string. As kind people on #php explained to me, PHP treats any string as 0. While I can understand such behaviour, I think there should be a warning like "you are treating a string as an array" or something. This warning should probably not occur when the key is a number, as this would return the character, but when accessing a string key of a string makes no sense. I can't see how this would break any backward compatibility, and it would make debugging much easier! Edit: I've now seen that there are similar bugs, all marked closed and without any non-stock explanation. I would really like to know why this "is expected", because to me, having developed in PHP for two years, this wasn't expected at all, and caused me a good headache. Pardon me if I am spamming, I would prefer to add a comment to those bugs, but can't. Reproduce code: --------------- $array = array(); $array = "string"; $array["foo"] = "bar"; Expected result: ---------------- Would be nice if it produced a warning on line 3, "Trying to access a string as an array" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=33879&edit=1