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

Am 08.12.2017 um 05:41 schrieb Stephen Reay:

On 8 Dec 2017, at 08:54, "lists@rhsoft.net" <lists@rhsoft.net> wrote:

Am 08.12.2017 um 01:38 schrieb Björn Larsson:

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.

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

to get this consistent that would also require change every line of code calling core functions like sort instead of sort($array) as sort($array) i doubt that the benefits could justify the BC break

I think Rowan's suggestion makes a lot of sense. There's zero bc break for existing code, but new/updated code can get the benefits of being specific about how the parameter is used.

"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" would be a massive BC break and it's much bader to use a not so long existed syntax which was now changed to a fatal error - just type "php call-by-reference" in google

I know "references are the wrong tool for any job" is a belief held my some of the community - I'm curious if out/inout parameters solve any of their concerns about references?

now because they are not bad because the syntax, they are bad fopr most usecases because you try to be smarter the PHP's copy-on-write but in most cases you won't