Re: Make Reflection*::getDocComme nt() return an empty string instead of false

On 25 June 2025 11:37:37 BST, "Gina P. Banyard" <internals@gpb.moe> wrote: >The getDocComment method of various Reflection classes was always used as a string, and we >thought changing the behaviour in PHP made more sense. Looking at the stub file, the use of false instead of null to signal "no value" seems to be used in a bunch of places in that extension. For instance, getExtensionName() apparently returns false to indicate a user-defined function, while getFileName() returns false for the opposite case. Returning an empty string when there's actually no comment feels a bit awkward and inconsistent - for example, we don't return a "no type" object from getReturnType(). I think returning null rather than false for all of these would be preferable. From a compatibility point of view, it's not much different from changing to return '' or 0 for those cases, but feels more logical as a design. Rowan Tommins [IMSoP]