Re: Whitespace around Paamayim Nekudotayim (double colon)

Thanks, now I realise I was probably wrong to bring this up. I had it in my mind that "::" could never appear chained together (thinking of constants), but it's just that I've never seen code that chains them together – i.e. this is valid: A::b()::c()::$d::$e = 5; On Mon, 15 Feb 2021 at 15:06, Rowan Tommins <rowan.collins@gmail.com> wrote: > On 15/02/2021 14:52, Matthew Brown wrote: > > The most comparable example is between namespace separators: > > > > Ns \ bar(); > > Ns \ SOME_CONST; > > > > are both syntax errors. > > > As Sara says, this only became an error in 8.0, and there was a rather > specific reason for it, but I think there is a philosophical difference, > too. > > "\" is part of a single piece of syntax: a fully-qualified class, > constant, or function name. You can't write $foo\Bar or Foo\$bar or > $foo\$bar. > > "::" on the other hand is an operator that can be used in a variety of > ways. You can write $foo::bar(), Foo::$bar, $foo::$bar, {$foo . > 'Handler'}::handle(), parent::foo(), and so on. It stands to reason that > it would have the same whitespace rules as any other operator. > > > > I was surprised to learn that PHP treats :: similar to -> > > I think it would be rather surprising if it *didn't* treat the two > operators similarly, since they're so closely related. > > > > I wonder if there's a benefit to removing a small potential footgun from > > the language? > > > I'm not really sure what the footgun here is. Adding newlines around > just about any operator you can think of will lead to code that confuses > at first glance: > > $x = [ > 1, > 2, > 3, > 4, > 5 > ] > > // Wait, we're not done yet... > > [2]; > > > Short of changing the entire language from semicolon-delimited to > newline-delimited, that's inevitable. > > > Regards, > > -- > Rowan Tommins > [IMSoP] > > -- > PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List > To unsubscribe, visit: https://www.php.net/unsub.php > >