Re: Allowing NULL for some internal functions

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 5:32 PM Craig Francis <craig@craigfrancis.co.uk> wrote: > On Mon, 21 Feb 2022 at 09:04, Christoph M. Becker <cmbecker69@gmx.de> > wrote: > > > That "inconsistency" had been introduced with PHP 7.0.0, i.e. right when > > scalar type declarations have been introduced. Passing a null to a > > non-nullable parameter of a *userland* function throws a TypeError > > > > > Thanks Christoph, that's a good way of looking at it. > > Considering NULL has been passed to these internal function parameters for > years, for a variety of reasons, and PHP has coerced it into an empty > string, integer 0, float 0, or boolean false... I'm wondering if my RFC > should focus on matching that expectation, so anyone not using > strict_types=1 does not need to make loads of > hard-to-find/unnecessary > edits; that way NULL would be treated the same as the other variable types > (I appreciate arrays and objects don't get coerced, but I don't think > anyone expects them to). > Yes, exactly that. A few weeks ago when the issue was mentioned again I had to remember by trying on 3v4l myself that using null for a string parameter wasn't an automatically coerced case when strict_types = 0. In my view, false would have the same problem for those internal functions. Why should it be coerced to an empty string? https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecate_null_to_scalar_internal_arg#proposal is all about removing the automatic coercion that was happening for null in the internal functions Planning that in PHP 9 the type interpretation for internal function will be done the same as for user defined functions. Consistency. Right now, if a parameter type is defined as string in an user function, no matter what strict_type is configured, it would still result in a TypeError when passing null. For internal functions, even if the parameter type is defined as string, null would be passed and a coercion would happen. As I mentioned, coercing false to int would be for me almost as bad as coercing null to int. But when types are not considered important I think it's worth pursuing extending the coercion from null to the 4 other types where it's happening right now: - int as 0, - float as 0.0, - string as an empty string - bool as false. I don't like it and I have no good idea how that would work as it would be a pretty big BC break. Maybe it would be easier to change strict_types to default to 1 in PHP 9 along with adding the null coercion for null when strict_types is 0 rather than inventing a new strict_types value like -1 that would allow null coercion as well. Starting with a notice in PHP 8.2 when the directive is not present might be an interesting starting point. And no more warning for implicit coercion when strict_types=0 directive is explicitly defined as it would not change anymore in PHP 9. Regards, Alex