Re: [RFC] Type Aliases

On Wed, Dec 3, 2025, at 22:04, Paul M. Jones wrote: > Hi Rob, > > (We've been using a lot of PHPStan type aliasing lately in the Star-Interop work, so this > topic is timely.) > > Is there some possibility of making the aliases more classlike so they can be autoloaded? A la: > > namespace Foo; > type number { as int|float; } > > Then elsewhere: > > use Foo\number; > function sum(number $a, number $b): number { return $a + $b; } > > Let me know if I've missed something fundamental. > > > -- pmj They fundamentally cannot be autoloaded because autoloading happens at runtime, not compile time. At least, with the current autoloader. Autoloading type aliases would need to have a fundamentally different type of autoloading that doesn’t exist today. — Rob