Bug #11447 Updated: Switch statement sensible for white-space

ID: 11447 Updated by: zeev Reported By: per.persson@gnosjo.pp.se Old Status: Open Status: Closed Bug Type: Scripting Engine problem Operating System: Linux (RedHat 6.2) PHP Version: 4.0.4pl1 New Comment: Spaces are indeed significant. Here's why. <? switch($var){ ?> <? case "alpha": break; }?> Is equivalent to <? switch($var) { print " "; break; }?> The two spaces outside the PHP blocks are a valid two character HTML block! Whereas: <? switch($var){ ?> <? case "alpha": break; }?> is equivalent to: <? switch($var){ case "alpha": break; }?> which is valid. Vlad was wrong, the bug is not valid :) Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2001-06-19 17:16:53] per.persson@gnosjo.pp.se Observe that the spaces are significant. This doesn't work: <? switch($var){ ?> <? case "alpha": break; }?> This does!: <? switch($var){ ?> <? case "alpha": break; }?> I suppose that the interpreter converts text outside <? ?> to echo statements, so that the first code block is equivalent to: <? switch($var){ echo ' '; case "alpha": break; }?> This code block gave the same parse error as the first one! (Expecting T_CASE or T_DEFAULT or '}') ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2001-06-19 12:29:47] vlad@php.net The bug is valid - if you close and reopen the PHP tags between the switch and the case statement, it is going to bark at you. It shouldn't. This does not work: <? switch($var){ ?> <? case "alpha": break; }?> This does: <? switch($var){ case "alpha": break; }?> Why in the world would anyone do that, is a whole other issue, still they probably expect to be able to do just that. If they can't, we either need to document it as such, (thus re-classify this as documentation problem) or fix it. I do not know what it takes to fix that, but it is a valid report nevertheless. Unbogusifying... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2001-06-13 14:58:29] per.persson@gnosjo.pp.se Which style I use, the "classical" style (using {}) or the "alternative" style (using : and endswitch), doesn't matter; the problem is the same. Sniper's comment about using <? ?> several times is surely justified when having one-line code as in his example, but when it comes to multi-line code, there is an issue of readability. I think that script A below is easier to read than script B. Don't you? --- begin script A --- <? switch($var): ?> <? case "alpha": ?> <p>Alpha</p> <? break; ?> <? case "beta": ?> <p>Beta</p> <? break; ?> <? default: ?> <p>Default</p> <? break; ?> <? endswitch; ?> --- end script A --- --- begin script B --- <? switch($var): case "alpha": ?> <p>Alpha</p> <? break; case "beta": ?> <p>Beta</p> <? break; default: ?> <p>Default</p> <? break; endswitch; ?> --- end script B --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2001-06-13 10:18:56] sniper@php.net Use the {} instead of the : / endswitch; ie. <?php switch ($value) { case: ?> <p>Alpha</p> <?php break; } ?> And anyway, using <? ?> too much is really not good idea. This is just stupid: <? some code ?><? more code?><? code..?> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2001-06-12 19:13:44] per.persson@gnosjo.pp.se Section 7.4 in the FAQ is a little bit related. Should perhaps the ending for a block of PHP-code be "?>" followed by any number of white-space characters? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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 http://bugs.php.net/?id=11447 Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=11447&edit=1