RE: [PHP-DEV] RFC: C-sharp style property get/set syntax for PHP

On Thu Dec 2 02:11 AM, Larry Garfield wrote: > > See, here's the fundamental problem we're running into. There's three > different definitions of what a property is that we keep bouncing > between, each of which will dictate both syntax and semantics: > > 1) Properties are a smart masking layer over class members, like a > smarter __get/__set, designed to make it possible to swap out in place > of class members at will. In this case, both the syntax and semantics > of properties should mirror class members as close as possible. > > 2) Properties are a short-hand for getFoo()/setFoo() methods (which in > the general sense should *not* be understood to always map to class > members, as discussed), designed to make typing $o->getFoo() and $o- > >setFoo() shorter/easier. In this case the syntax and semantics > >should > make that clear and not confuse the user with class-member-like syntax. Right, for example: $tp = new TimePeriod; $tp->hours = 2; foreach($tp as $prop => $val) Would this be an empty loop? That seems to be what the RFC proposes (2) "layer of syntactic sugar over a pair of methods". If a property is to provide the (1) "illusion of a variable" (~class member), IMHO it provides a clear benefit over the __get(), __set() methods. In the spirit of (1): class Audit_Entry { public $info; public $timeAdded { // illusion of a variable, removed 'public property' to avoid confusion get { return $this->_timeAdded; } isset { return isset($this->_timeAdded); } }; protected $_timeAdded; // Datetime function __get($prop) { // virtual properties, these are not class members } } In the spirit of (2), it seems like we would have two ways of doing the same thing. It would probably be a good idea to deprecate __get(), __set()... in favor of the C# style