Re: feature proposal: string types (complete with a patch)

Those who pay attention to my occasional ramblings may remember that I once suggested implementing "type hints", which is a more generic version of this. Type hints is like your string types, except that they apply to any type. I guess the core issue here is whether adding an int to zval or zval.value.str is worth the cost. With all the zval copying going on, there will be a cpu overhead as well as memory. Back when Andi moved zval.value.strlen and zval.value.strval into the str struct, thus saving 4 bytes in the zval struct, PHP 3 was generally speeded up by 25%. Not sure if the PHP 4 or PHP 5 overhead will be in the same ballpark, but it's something to think about. IMHO the syntax you suggest is a bit terse, what about this instead: echo url"http://$host:$port/$path"; As for the SQL string type, there needs to be at least two, some databases quote "'" as "''", others quote it as "\'". But I would like to extend the idea beyond reformatting inserted strings. For example, for easy soap/xmlrpc serialization, being able to tag a value as a date or some other soap/xmlrpc-specific type is very useful. - Stig On Thu, 2002-05-02 at 06:18, vdhome@idas.cz wrote: > Dear PHP developers, > > I propose a feature that I call "string types". I have also already > coded a first version of it that you can try. There's a bug for it > here: http://bugs.php.net/?id=16480 and a homepage with a > description > and a patch here: http://nebuchadnezzar.zion.cz/php_strings.php > Please be patient when downloading. The server is behind a 64k line. > :-( > > About the feature: It introduces five types of strings: plain string, > SQL string, HTML string, URL (query) string and undefined (unknown > type) string. The difference is in escaping characters that have > special meaning in SQL (quotes, nul), HTML (ampersand, less-than, > greater-than, double-quote) and URL (nearly everything except plain > letters and digits). The conversion is done automatically when > requested. This language extension is fully backwards-compatible; > users who don't know about the new features (or don't want to know) > need not worry: their existing scripts should work the same without > any change. For users who do know about this and want to use it, I > believe this new feature should bring significant improvement of code > readability, reduction of code size and reduced probability of bugs. > > I think that the best explanation is by example, so see this: > > $data = p"a string with 'apostrophes', \"double-quotes\" etc."; > mysql_query(s"INSERT INTO table VALUES ('$data')"); > > Because we include a plain string in an SQL string, the plain string > is automatically converted to an SQL string, i.e. AddSlashes is > applied to it. Strings from GET/POST/COOKIE have the right type, > which makes it possible to easily write scripts that do not depend on > the setting of magic_quotes_gpc. (An SQL string included in another > SQL string is not converted, of course.) > > Another one: > > $data = p"a string with <less-than, >greater-than, &ampersand"; > echo h"<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME=parameter VALUE=\"$data\">"; > > Here, the $data string is automatically HtmlSpecialChars'ed when > included in a HTML string. > > Read more about it on the above mentioned homepage. Try it, test it, > tell me what you think about it! Just remember that this is alpha > code, and it is very little tested. I make no guarantees whatsoever, > except that it has bugs. :-) > > Please cc me in any replies. I am not subscribed to the list (so in > fact, I don't know if it will allow me to post this). I realize that > this is not a good practice, but I couldn't handle the loads of mail - > and according to http://www.php.net/mailing-lists.php this > list > isn't available in digest form. :-( > > Thanks for your attention. > > Vaclav Dvorak (vdhome@idas.cz) > http://nebuchadnezzar.zion.cz/ > > -- > PHP Development Mailing List <http://www.php.net/> > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php