Re: PHP header files, restrict to declaring code only

On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 2:30 PM Lynn <kjarli@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello everyone! > > This is my first mail to the internals, my apologies if I made a mistake > somewhere. > > I would like to propose a new type of php "file" called "phph", short for > "php-header". > This file could receive an optional open-tag: <?phph or > perhaps a > declare(header=1), > not sure what's more feasible, or if there are better solutions. This open > tag could be > optional for forward compatibility towards omitting the tag. > > Php-header files would be allowed to only contain declaring code. This > means that any code > that would run "while loading", would not be allowed and cause a syntax > error in the same > fashion as trying to add a function call in the middle of a class > declaration. > > ```php > <?php > // forward compatible? change default in a major version? > // any other ideas? > declare(header=1); > > // syntax errors: > echo 'foo'; > $a = 'b'; > > // valid > class Foo {} > interface Bar {} > function baz() {} > // etc > ``` > > By restricting it to declaration only, it would make it possible to add > extra features to > classes, such as annotations as there are a lot less edge cases to think > about: > > ```php > <?php > @trigger_error('Foo is deprecated as of 2.0, use Bar instead', > E_USER_DEPRECATED); > class Foo {} > ``` > > New scenario could be: > ```php > <?php > declare(header=1); > > use Php\Debugging\Annotations\Deprecated; > > @Deprecated('Foo is deprecated as of 2.0, use Bar instead'); > class Foo {} > ``` > > This is a pretty rough sketch, and I'm not exactly sure if this is doable. > I'm really eager > to have native support for annotations and perhaps this idea could inspire > someone with a > solution to make this feasible. > > Regards, > Lynn van der Berg > Hi Lynn, I'm not sure I understood what the benefit of introducing a header file concept will be. Could you elaborate more on how this will help annotations (or other functionality)? Nikita