Bug #73081 [Opn]: strange behavior when assigning string key on empty string

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=73081&edit=1 ID: 73081 Updated by: cmb@php.net Reported by: jhdxr@php.net Summary: strange behavior when assigning string key on empty string Status: Open Type: Bug Package: *General Issues PHP Version: 7.1.0RC1 Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: Firstly, the index operator ([]) is not only an array operator, but also a string operator[1], so it makes sense to treat [] on strings as string operations. Whether the empty index operator should be supported for strings had been discussed on internals[2], and IIRC there had been consensus to not allow it at all. I'm not sure if using the index operator on strings with string indixes has explicitly been discussed, but I would rather not treat this differently, to avoid subtle differences (e.g. $str['1'] vs $str[1]). Instead the current behavior looks fine for me, because it uses PHP type juggling rules to convert a string index to a numeric index (in this case (int)'a' => 0). So, in my opinion, this is not a bug. [1] <http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.substr> [2] <http://news.php.net/php.internals/91200> Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2016-09-14 06:10:03] jhdxr@php.net Description: ------------ previously, empty string converted to array automaticly when using array related operators on empty string. And I know this behaviour was changed because of the fix for https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=53432 . there are some similar or related bugs like https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=72430 , which I think reasonable, since empty string will not be converted to array, and [] is an operator for array rather than string. however, when I try to assign a value via string index on an empty string, I just get a warning and strange result (see the test script below <https://3v4l.org/Kuj6l>). Test script: --------------- <?php $arr = ''; $arr['a'] = 'test'; var_dump($arr); Expected result: ---------------- //since $arr is a string, array operator should not be allowed Fatal error: or //bug #53432 only covers the cases of using number as the index, and in other cases, maybe empty string should be converted to an array. array(1) { ["a"]=> string(4) "test" } Actual result: -------------- Warning: Illegal string offset 'a' in /in/Kuj6l on line 4 string(1) "t" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=73081&edit=1