Re: Consensus on argument validation for built-in functions

On Monday, 10 March 2025 at 23:07, Jorg Sowa <jorg.sowa@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I’d like to align on the approach to validating arguments for built-in functions (usually for > flag inputs). Some ongoing discussions in PRs: > - https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/15647 > - https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/15883 > - https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/17859 > > In some cases, changes introduced ValueError immediately in the next version, without a > deprecation phase. To ensure a consistent approach, I propose the following: > > 1. Introduce a deprecation notice in the next minor version. > 2. Raise a ValueError in the following minor version. > > If needed, I can create RFC, but as described by a few people in the discussions, we can avoid > it having the consensus. What do you think? My opinion on this topic is well known, validation errors should go straight to a ValueError. And if not a ValueError then it should be an E_WARNING. Raising a deprecation is frankly non-sensical. Validation errors exist to inform the person programing that there is an error with the call site that is preventable very easily. If we start emitting E_DEPRECATED instead of E_WARNING/throwing a ValueError, we are incentivising people to add throwing error handlers for E_DEPRECATED, something that I (and I know others too) lament constantly, as a deprecation is not an error. Best regards, Gina P. Banyard >