Re: [RFC] Scope functions

Thanks for this RFC, here are my 2cents: I think the current syntax is too close to current short closures, and since it allows multiline closures, it would imply that by default all multiline short closures are scoped, which is not intuitive since traditional closures don't capture by default. Instead, I think replacing the fn () { }  syntax to add a keyboard indicating it inherits the scope would drastically help making it more intuitive. I would imagine instead something like this:

    $externalVar = 0;
    $closure1 = scoped fn () => $newVar1 = $externalVar++;
    $closure2 = scoped function () {
        return $newVar2 = $externalVar++;
    };
    $closure1();
    $closure2();
    var_dump($newVar1); // int(0)
    var_dump($newVar2); // int(1)
    var_dump($externalVar); // int(2)

This way, for the first case, the only new information that scoped brings is the potential existence of $newVar1 after the closure's execution, and for the second closure, it makes it explicit that all variables in the closure's body are shared with the parent scope. WDYT? Le 06/05/2026 à 22:09, Bob Weinand a écrit :

Volker and I drafted a RFC: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/scope-functions Please consider it and share your feedback. I hope it will alleviate pain around some of the most common forms of Closure usage which is "execute this now as part of the called function", which currently can require a lot of "use ($variables)". For me the primary use case of use ($capturing) was always "I need this function later and want to explicitly document what escapes my function". This, however, required this straightforward usage of Closures to also document every single usage of a variable. Which is really not that beneficial at all. Thus the scope functions as proposed will be able to fill that gap in future. Thank you, Bob