Re: [RFC] Explicit call-site send-by-ref syntax

Den 2017-12-06 kl. 20:49, skrev Nikita Popov:

Hi internals, I'd like propose optional support for explicitly marking by-reference argument passing at the call-site, in addition to the declaration-site:

     https://wiki.php.net/rfc/explicit_send_by_ref

In short, while currently we have

     function byRef(&$ref) {...}
     byRef($var);

this proposal would also allow

     function byRef(&$ref) {...}
     byRef(&$var);

so that the use of by-reference passing is obvious without having to consult the function declaration. Regards, Nikita I think this proposal has a good point about static analysers,

not just about human readability. A good static analyser is very helpful for eg migration projects and if this proposal benefits that, it's a plus. Also using same syntax for references like in other parts of the language has a value. Now expressing the same thing in two different ways, with or without & is confusing, so I think one needs to think about if old syntax should be deprecated in 8.0. Has never used PHP 4, so not confused by old PHP 4 syntax but I guess for people on this list the percentage is higher... r//Björn