Re: Idea to extend language: Explicitly setting variable scope inside user defined function (longer)

At 04:31 AM 10/21/2002 +0200, NTPT wrote:

Hi. I have some idea and suggestion how to extend PHP language a bit in some way. That may probably lead to increasing of php flexibility, allow more modular coding to be done etc.... My sugestion is simple: Allow PHP programmer to explicitelly told , WHAT variable scope will be used inside user defined functions. In the traditional approach (afaik , i use php 4.2.2 ), as is described in the manual of php there a diferent varable scopes for each functions , only syntax " global $valuename" ; can lead to use variables global. This aproach is traditional and well known and is sufficient for most tasks.(I say sufficient, not effective...). My idea is going a bit behind it. I suggest to introduce new keyword(s) or function(s) into the PHP language definiton (i suggest syntax like "var_scope scope" or var_scope("scope") ) That keywords SHOULD be used in user defined functions to EXPLICITLY define, WHAT kind of variable scope will be used inside this function. scope can be either 'local' = it means, that all variables used in this function have a local scope only.(it means like traditional behavior of php and its variable scopes until now ) 'global' = each variable used in the function is from global scope. Similar to "global $variable_1,$variable_2........... $each variable used in the main execution line of the script" 'caller' or 'inherit' This is MOST USEFUL part of the idea . Function variable scope is the SAME as from where the function was called. (if functino bar(),with have var_scope set to 'caller', is called from function foo() it have the same variable scope as function foo(), almost like the code of function bar() was included (by include "something" ) somewhere inside foo() )

I think having something like "caller" is very bad. It would mean that functions don't have any contracts anymore as they can start messing around with the callers symbol table. Andi