Re: [RFC] [Discussion] Adding return types to internal methods

Le 20/04/2021 à 11:44, Máté Kocsis a écrit :

Hi Pierre, PHP doesn't have such an advanced type inference capability: just consider dynamic calls, or regular function invocations where the return type information is not available. Yes I know it doesn't have it, it was a subtle way of asking if one day, the compiler may have inferences capabilities. I know it's not really possible until it continues loading code dynamically at runtime, but in some scenarios (such as preload, or inherited/implemented class type checking) it may be possible, I'm only hard guessing here

On the other hand, we could add return types implicitly, as it was proposed earlier, but I didn't really like this solution.

Return types being added automatically really looks like inference already, just a simple one, I guess. I'd love it. In all inheritance or interface implementation scenarios, it seem possible, since the compiler needs to load the implemented or inherited class code to be able to compile the current class. Any good IDE that knows PHP does the job would it also and be able to detect errors with that.

For a little more details, have a look at my initial message: https://externals.io/message/112625#112625 Besides, I think it's better to document the return types explicitly as a declaration, since they usually help during implementation. Máté

Thanks for your answer. Regards, -- Pierre