Re: Replacing array_slice

Hi Levi, thanks for bringing this discussion. Recently I've been scrutinizing array_slice. It's been painful. > > For instance, $preserve_keys is totally ignored for string > keys. > This was undocumented until Christoph integrated it 2-3 days ago > (thanks, cmb). However, this is really not a good design decision: why > have a parameter that is called preserve_keys if the data gets > the > final say, especially since there isn't any technical requirement for > this? > > Here's another "fun" behavior: negative offsets whose absolute values > are larger than the size of the array (eg the array has 3 elements and > you pass an offset of -5) will shift the window to begin at zero > instead of truncating the out-of-range values (which is what happens > on the positive side). > > And another: $length is a length when it's a positive > number, but > it's an offset from the end when it's negative. You could perhaps > convince me that when length is positive it's an offset from the > $offset parameter. However, if you look at the design of > slicing > functions in other languages (eg Python, Ruby, JavaScript) they take > beginning and ending offsets, not a beginning offset and a length. > > And another: it always iterates from the beginning of the array even > if you are only interested in the last half (somewhat common for > various algorithms that split things in half). > > Fixing array_slice would probably do more harm than good at > this > stage. Instead I would like to provide an alternative function that > does not have all this baggage, and will have decent performance much > of the time. The best ideas I have for names are not that great: > > - array_real_slice? > - array_slice2? > > We could also split it into 2 functions, one that preserves keys and > one that doesn't, instead of using a parameter. Any ideas there? > > -- > PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php A while ago I come up with this discussion in my Twitter, not with a new function, but with a new "operator": https://twitter.com/carusogabriel/status/974610078807613443 What do you think? Thanks,