C++-like function-try-block proposal

Greetings! I have been referred to this mailing list by https://wiki.php.net/rfc/howto as the first step to propose a language change. I first tried to register on wiki.php.net as per php-src/README.SUBMITTING_PATCH in order to actually make an RFC, only to be given an error: Writing /srv/web-wiki/dokuwiki/conf/users.auth.php failed I am proposing a patch (see attachment) to bring C++-like function-try-block shorthand syntax (http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/function-try-block) for whole-function try-catch-finally blocks: function fuu($foo, $bar): void try { may_throw($foo); may_throw($bar); } catch (FuuException $e) { echo $e->getMessage(); } Since PHP is partially influenced by C++, I believe this syntax would be a meaningful step in making PHP a little bit more intuitively compatible with C++ practices, which may prove useful for people who come to PHP from the C++ world (such as myself.) The expected benefit is PHP becomes yet more familiar and comfortable for C++ programmers. Also, this syntax saves us one set of curly braces and an indentation level, allowing for more compact and expressive functions, and especially closures: $s = preg_replace($re, $s, function (array $m): void try { return find_replacement(...$m); } catch (Throwable $e) { return $m[0]; }); In addition to the syntactic sugar, I would like to outline another possible merit: the very fact of such a shorthand construct existing may encourage programmers to write functions with a consistent approach to exception handling at whole-function level. Each such function becomes a self-contained code unit tightly coupled with its exception handling logic, the programmer's intent clearly outlined by the use of the proposed construct, thereby facilitating code clarity and integrity and promoting a stricter and more rigid code style. The proposed patch makes purely cosmetic modifications to zend_language_parser.y grammar to augment plain functions, class methods, and closures to accept try-catch-finally blocks as their bodies in addition to regular compound statements. It amounts to just a handful of lines and entails no API changes. I submitted my patch via the bugtracker: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=75576 Please share your thoughts. --Alexei Gerasimov