Req #78480 [Com]: The typed properties miss an important "function"

From: Date: Fri, 04 Dec 2020 10:50:17 +0000
Subject: Req #78480 [Com]: The typed properties miss an important "function"
References: 1  Groups: php.bugs 
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Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=78480&edit=1

 ID:                 78480
 Comment by:         a dot haan at iwink dot nl
 Reported by:        manchokapitancho at gmail dot com
 Summary:            The typed properties miss an important "function"
 Status:             Open
 Type:               Feature/Change Request
 Package:            Scripting Engine problem
 PHP Version:        7.4.0beta4
 Block user comment: N
 Private report:     N

 New Comment:

Ah. With https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=78904
that behavior of __get changed. There's now a difference between uninitialized and
unset properties.

That makes this request more apparent.

We used to mix types for micro cache properties; start as false, ending up with
null, or an object instance. By strict checking for false retrieval is
only done once.

Since mixing types is a bad practice, and not an option with typed properties anyway, it would be
ideal if one could detect whether a property was actually uninitialized.

Sure, we can. Two ways are mentioned here. But both are verbose and require representing the
property as a string.


Previous Comments:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2020-12-04 10:15:52] a dot haan at iwink dot nl

[2019-09-08 18:10 UTC] jhdxr@php.net writes:

You can use __get to check if it's initialized. 

That's not completely true - in PHP 7.4.11.

In the first example on https://wiki.php.net/rfc/typed_properties_v2#overloaded_properties

if you do not include unset($this->typed);, then that example still throws:

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Typed property Test::$typed must not be accessed before initialization
in test.php on line 24

That line is the first var_dump($test->typed);.

Apparently this little edge case was not covered when implementing the RFC.


Regarding this mentioned issue there is another option to test for initialized state:
array_key_exists('prop', get_object_vars($obj));
Not very neat either.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2019-09-09 18:10:12] manchokapitancho at gmail dot com

I know that I can use __get but:
1. this is a workaround (which is also not simpler than a ReflectionProperty call).
2. this is only possible if the developer has control over the class. A counterexample would be a
typed property in a class exposed by a third party library.

Once again: the target is "if (!is_initialized($obj->prop)) { ... }" similar to 
"if (!isset($obj->prop)) { ... }". Isset would not generate a notice if the property is
not defined and similarly is_initialized should not trigger a TypeError if $obj->prop has not
been yet initialized.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2019-09-08 18:10:54] jhdxr@php.net

You can use __get to check if it's initialized. 

see the Overloaded Properties section of the RFC(https://wiki.php.net/rfc/typed_properties_v2) as an
example.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2019-08-31 14:05:20] manchokapitancho at gmail dot com

A simplified use case would be:

//orm with lazy loading from DB
class something {
 public ?<class|self> $parent;
....
function getParent() {
 if (! is_initialized($this->parent)) {
 $this->parent = //fetch from DB; value could be NULL
 }
 return $this->parent;
}
...
}


A plain function is indeed possible but the call parameters should be ($obj, 'prop) since
($obj->prop) would throw TypeError.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2019-08-31 11:42:08] nikic@php.net

What's your use-case?

A language construct for this is very unlikely, but if this is a common and performance-critical
operation, a plain function could be provided in lieu of going through reflection.

------------------------------------------------------------------------


The remainder of the comments for this report are too long. To view
the rest of the comments, please view the bug report online at

    https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=78480


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Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=78480&edit=1


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