Re: [RFC] Deprecations for PHP 8.6

On 22 June 2026 14:13:19 BST, "Gina P. Banyard" <internals@gpb.moe> wrote: >Hello internals, > >It is this time of year again where we proposed a list of deprecations to add in PHP 8.6: > >https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecations_php_8_6 The one that stands out to me at first glance is the _() alias for gettext() I understand the motivation, but removing it is likely to be extremely disruptive, particularly paired with banning it as an identifier so users can't polyfill it. _() is basically the canonical way to use gettext in every language it's been ported to. The idea is that you can write code and templates with hard-coded English/base-language strings, and wrap them with a small amount of punctuation rather than extra words. While replacement would be relatively straightforward, affected codebases are likely to have thousands of uses, and the end result would be a reduction in readability. If we want to go down this route, we need a stronger justification than is given - does it actually cause a *problem* reserving it only in class-like context, or is the proposal just for neatness? Rowan Tommins [IMSoP]