Re: Shorthand proposal for associative arrays

On 1/26/2018 7:16 PM, Christian Schneider wrote: > Hi there, > I have a proposal for a shorthand notation of associative arrays borrowed from another > language: > :$foo > would be equivalent to > 'foo' => $foo > and would work with array, list or [] > > Motivation behind it, maybe someone else finds more good uses: > > 1) Emulating named parameters with associative arrays like > html::img([ 'src' => $src, 'alt' => $alt ]); > could be written as > html::img([ :$src, :$alt ]); > which encourages consistent naming of variables and parameters > > 2) Simplifying list destructuring with non-integer keys, example taking from > http://php.net/manual/en/migration71.new-features.php#migration71.new-features.support-for-keys-in-list > foreach ($data as ["id" => $id, "name" => $name]) { > becomes > foreach ($data as [ :$id, :$name ]) { > which reduces redundancy. > > I implemented a minimal patch (2 lines are added to the parser) to implement this which you can > find at > https://cschneid.com/php/php7_2/assoc_array_shorthand.patch > > What do you think, is this worth an RFC? I hope I didn't miss an existing one :-) > > Regards, > - Chris > > Hi Chris! I really like this proposal. compact is cumbersome to use, or lets say, almost impossible without an intelligent IDE. However, what is more important is the fact that is would allow for a very readable and usable approach for destructuring of associative arrays (as illustrated by your example) which is very, very neat. The change is also extremely minimal which speaks for it. I would support you in writing up an RFC for this (if desired). -- Richard "Fleshgrinder" Fussenegger