Re: Bug #748: get_meta_tags() function clobbers namespace

Rasmus Lerdorf wrote: > > I don't know who write it. I just saw the entry in the ChangeLog. > Ah, but there are easy and obvious ways to discover who wrote it. > I am sure you can figure that out. Sure, but that is not the point I wanted to make. The problem I have with the get_meta_tags() function is not who implemented it, but how it choses to return values. PHP is perfectly capable of returning arrays, hashes or objects as function results. With list() these can even be handled comfortably in assignments, if desired. Returning function results as side-effects of the function call and messing up the global namespace is a bad design decision because it creates problems for library implementors and because it is simply not necessary. "$meta = meta_tags($filename)" and "$meta = fmeta_tags($filehandle)" with $meta being an array can be easily written with the current PHP API and would not ruin the concept and the structure of the language. This is completely independent of the particular get_meta_tags() function and who implemented it. Instead it is an annotation that should be made available to everybody who implements functions for the PHP language and it is a kind of rule that should be used by those who guard the source to decide if a submission of a language extension is accepted for a release. The latter is important, because if get_meta_tags() style function returns make it into a release of the language, the language maintainers will invariably have to support these functions later for compatibility reasons, even when it starts to hurt. If I guarded the source (which I don't and which I can't), I would reject such a function on the grounds that it does not fit into the concept of the language and I would ask the writer of that function to resubmit it with the suggested changes in the interface. Regarding the bug report: Close it or not, I don't care. get_meta_tags() surely is functional, it just suffers from general interface uglyness. Kristian -- SH Online Dienst GmbH, Kristian Koehntopp, Siemenswall, 24107 Kiel, +49 431 386 436 00 Using PHP3? See our web development library at http://phplib.shonline.de/ (GPL) -- PHP Development Mailing List http://www.php.net/ To unsubscribe send an empty message to php-dev-unsubscribe@lists.php.net For help: php-dev-help@lists.php.net