Re: [RFC] Deprecate the extract function in PHP 7.3

On Fri, Sep 15, 2017 at 1:35 PM, <ilija.tovilo@me.com> wrote: > The extract function takes an associative array and > puts it into the local symbol table. > http://php.net/manual/en/function.extract.php > > I seriously doubt the usefulness of this function, > especially looking at the potential risks. The fact > that overwriting the local variables is the default > behaviour doesn’t make it any better. I suggest > deprecating it in PHP 7.3 and removing it in 8. > Preface: I despise extract() as well. It's breaks assumptions for both the developer and the runtime. I save some of my frowniest of faces for extract(). That said... > I can see it’s usefulness in this case. > But wouldn’t it be better to implement this by hand > in these rare cases (it’s 3 lines of code) instead of > encouraging the pollution of the symbol table by > unknown input? It’s also clearer since people who > don’t know the extract function probably don’t > expect it to mutate the local symbol table. > Let's be clear on what that looks like: foreach ($data as $key => $value) { $$key = $value; } This is SO MUCH WORSE for several reasons, no least of all what happens when $data contains keys named 'data', 'key', or 'value'. I'd like to kill extract(), but it does have a reason for being, and I couldn't in any good conscience support removing it without a replacement that's at least marginally better. -Sara