[RFC] var_representation() : readable alternative to var_export()

From: Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2021 00:50:07 +0000
Subject: [RFC] var_representation() : readable alternative to var_export()
Groups: php.internals 
Request: Send a blank email to internals+get-112967@lists.php.net to get a copy of this message
Hi internals, I've created https://wiki.php.net/rfc/readable_var_representation based on my original proposal in https://externals.io/message/112924 This RFC proposes adding a new function var_representation(mixed $value, int $flags=0): string with the following differences from var_export: 1. var_representation() unconditionally returns a string 2. Use null instead of NULL - lowercase is recommended by more coding guidelines (https://www.php-fig.org/psr/psr-2/). 3. Change the way indentation is done for arrays/objects. See ext/standard/tests/general_functions/short_var_export1.phpt (e.g. always add 2 spaces, never 3 in objects, and put the array start on the same line as the key) 4. Render lists as "['item1']" rather than "array(\n 0 => 'item1',\n)" Always render empty lists on a single line, render multiline by default when there are 1 or more elements 5. Prepend \ to class names so that generated code snippets can be used in namespaces without any issues. 6. Support VAR_REPRESENTATION_SINGLE_LINE in $flags. This will use a single-line representation for arrays/objects, though strings with embedded newlines will still cause newlines in the output. 7. If a string contains control characters("\x00"-"\x1f" and "\x7f"(backspace)), then represent the entire string as a double quoted string escaping \r, \n, \t, \$, \\, and \", in addition to escaping remaining control characters with hexadecimal encoding (\x00, \x7f, etc) This is different from my original proposal in two ways: 1. The function signature and name changed from my previous proposal. It now always returns a string. 2. Backspace control characters (\x7f) are now also escaped. Thanks, - Tyson

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