Req #45681 [Opn->Sus]: namespace visibility

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=45681&edit=1 ID: 45681 Updated by: cmb@php.net Reported by: frase at cs dot wisc dot edu Summary: namespace visibility -Status: Open +Status: Suspended Type: Feature/Change Request Package: Scripting Engine problem Operating System: Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy PHP Version: 5.3.0alpha1 Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: This feature would certainly need an RFC[1]. I suspend this ticket for the time being. [1] <https://wiki.php.net/rfc/howto> Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-08-25 18:15:26] ganswijk at xs4all dot nl What strange that it can only be used on the first line. That sounds very Fortran/Cobol-like! I am not very familiar with namespaces yet, but I happened to study some C# code lately and they seem to have a much better solution: namespace name-of-namespace { code-in-the-name-space } Also see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/z2kcy19k(VS.80).aspx ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-08-01 16:33:52] frase at cs dot wisc dot edu Also: This would also eliminate the need for class visibility, as mentioned in i.e. Bug #44194. By declaring everything in a class (including the constructor) with the 'namespace' (or lesser) visibility, nothing outside the namespace could instantiate or access it, so the class itself would be effectively invisible outside the namespace. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2008-08-01 16:25:02] frase at cs dot wisc dot edu Description: ------------ When PHP first introduced visibility, it did not yet have namespaces, so the only applicable visibility schemes were related to classes -- members were either global (public), or local to the class (private), possibly including parents and children (protected). But with the addition of namespaces, there is now a need for a visibility scope between public and protected. Developers (like me) will use namespaces to create packages -- collections of classes that are meant to work closely with each other. In this context, it would be very convenient to be able to make members visible to other (unrelated-by-inheritance) classes within the same package (namespace), but hidden from the world outside the package. Since the 'namespace' keyword is currently only allowed on the first line of a file, and therefore could not occur inside a class, I suggest re-using it for this purpose rather than introducing another reserved word. Reproduce code: --------------- <?php namespace Test; class A { namespace static $nsVar = 'Test::A::nsVar'; static function test() { echo __CLASS__." can see ".A::$nsVar."\n"; } } class B { static function test() { echo __CLASS__." can see ".A::$nsVar."\n"; } } Test::A::test(); Test::B::test(); Expected result: ---------------- Test::A can see Test::A::nsVar Test::B can see Test::A::nsVar Actual result: -------------- (syntax error on 'namespace', line 4) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=45681&edit=1