RE: [PHP-DEV] PHP Philosophy (was RE: [PHP-DEV] Scalar type hinting)

From: Simon Schick [mailto:simonsimcity@googlemail.com] > > Hi, John > > Therefore I think it would be easy to explain how a type-hint for scalar could work. > > You can explain it as saying that the following two functions should be end up in exactly the > same result, whatever you're pasting into: > > function foo_one(scalar $bar) {} > > function foo_two($bar) { >  if (!is_scalar($bar)) >    trigger_error("Catchable fatal error: Argument ? passed to ? must be a scalar, ? >given,", E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR); > } Type hints that only ensure that something is a scalar are a non-starter for me. I'm not going to waste my time on something like that. You're not going to get any better core support with this, and you'll alienate support from a majority of userland as well. The average function doesn't need "just a scalar, but any scalar will do". Most functions need something specific, like a string, or a number. sqrt('foo') doesn't make any sense, it needs a number, not just a scalar. John Crenshaw Priacta, Inc.