I propose to add an alternative (backward compatible) short array creation syntax:
$a = [ 1, 2, 3 ]; and $a = [ 'a' => 42, 'b' => "foo" ];
It can also be used in function calls:
img(['src' => "logo.gif", 'alt' => "Logo"]);
Reason behind this change: Arrays are used a lot and should therefore have as little syntactic overhead as possible. And I think the short syntax is also easier to read and write.
A patch for the parser is trivial and is attached for Zend2.
Note: I checked the newsgroup archive but couldn't find a discussion about this. After not hearing back about my proposed enhancement to debug_backtrace() and the dangling comma for function call parameters being rejected I wonder if I'm using the right mailing list for this :-)
- Chris
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Index: Zend/zend_language_parser.y
===================================================================
RCS file: /repository/ZendEngine2/zend_language_parser.y,v
retrieving revision 1.127
diff -u -r1.127 zend_language_parser.y
--- Zend/zend_language_parser.y 19 Oct 2003 08:38:48 -0000 1.127
+++ Zend/zend_language_parser.y 4 Nov 2003 23:32:12 -0000
@@ -581,6 +581,7 @@
| '@' { zend_do_begin_silence(&$1 TSRMLS_CC); } expr { zend_do_end_silence(&$1 TSRMLS_CC); $$ = $3; }
| scalar { $$ = $1; }
| T_ARRAY '(' array_pair_list ')' { $$ = $3; }
+ | '[' array_pair_list ']' { $$ = $2; }
| '' encaps_list '' { zend_do_shell_exec(&$$, &$2 TSRMLS_CC); }
| T_PRINT expr { zend_do_print(&$$, &$2 TSRMLS_CC); }
;