Re: Type hinting misunderstood

On Sun, 2008-01-06 at 15:59 +0100, Magnus Määttä wrote: > On Sunday 06 January 2008, Alain Williams wrote: > > On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 01:02:54PM +0100, Stefan Esser wrote: > > > Hello Alain, > > > > > > I think you are also confused about PHP type hinting... > > > > > > The manual clearly states: > > > > > > > > > > Type Hinting > > > > > > > PHP 5 introduces Type Hinting. Functions are now able to force > > > parameters to be objects (by specifying the name of the class in the > > > function prototype) or arrays (since PHP 5.1). > > > > > > And suddenly you want to change that definition to > > > > > > "Functions are now able to force parameters to be types that *could be > > > casted* to objects/arrays." > > > > > > That is not going to happen. Type hints are supposed to force parameter > > > to be of a specific type. Any kind of auto conversion would redefine > > > type hinting and would be just another feature that gives PHP haters a > > > reason to rant about. > > > And if you want that '1' is allowed to be passed as parameter (without > > > an actual int cast) because it COULD BE CASTED to int then you gain > > > ABSOLUTELY nothing from the type hint. Then you don't need to introduce > > > them at all. > > > > No - you have misunderstood me. The actual cast IS part of the proposal.. > > > > My mail showing how the checking works might have not be clear on the cast > > part - I was talking about the checking -- which has to happen before a cast. > > The point that I was trying to make is that the VALUE is preserved. Within > > the function type juggling may still happen, allowing an int to be used > > as a string (or whatever). > > This would only be confusing and not anything like the original proposal, or > anything that I would support or have any use of. > > Type hinting should force the type, not cast it to the type specified. This > proposal is about forcing types and I'm sure pretty much everyone would > expect a type-hinted param to be of a forced type, not converted, like every > other language I've ever used. This was the intention I had when I wrote the patch. Automatic type casting would go against the rules of array/class type hints, and require a completely new patch.