Bug #68475 [Com]: call_user_func($a) not equivalent to $a()

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=68475&edit=1 ID: 68475 Comment by: nicolas dot grekas+php at gmail dot com Reported by: nicolas dot grekas+php at gmail dot com Summary: call_user_func($a) not equivalent to $a() Status: Assigned Type: Bug Package: Scripting Engine problem PHP Version: 5.6.3 Assigned To: jpauli Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: This check for double double colons is implemented for the callable type hint. This means that the performance argument is not relevant (since a type hint is checked as often if not more often than a callable is effectivelly called). More importantly, it means that the type hint is useless in the general case, since it gives no guarantee whatsoever when the $callable() syntax is used instead of the call_user_func($callable) one. Last but not least, making $callable() not an equivalent for call_user_func($callable) just because of this case is a blocker for deprecating the former, since there will always be a valid use case for it. Especially since most of the code out there uses call_user_func($callable), because of history. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2014-12-01 03:39:17] laruence@php.net for the record, they are never guaranteed to be act the same. and, there is voice to deprecated call_user_** at all. so I don't think the fix is worthy to do (slowdown the fast path) .. thanks ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2014-12-01 03:39:16] laruence@php.net for the record, they are never guaranteed to be act the same. and, there is voice to deprecated call_user_** at all. so I don't think the fix is worthy to do (slowdown the fast path) .. thanks ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2014-11-29 12:51:50] jpauli@php.net Started a work at https://github.com/jpauli/php-src/compare/fix-68475 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2014-11-21 19:48:11] nicolas dot grekas+php at gmail dot com Description: ------------ Since php5.4, call_user_func($a) is almost equivalent to $a() $a() works with all callables BUT ONE. A "foo::bar" string is OK for call_user_func(), but KO for pure syntax. This make the new (and more performant) syntax useless in generic code that want to accept any callable. Test script: --------------- <?php class foo{static function bar(){}} $a = 'foo::bar'; echo is_callable($a),"\n"; call_user_func($a); $a(); Expected result: ---------------- 1 Actual result: -------------- 1 Fatal error: Call to undefined function foo::bar() in ... on line 7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=68475&edit=1