Re: ArrayAccess/ArrayObject return by reference

How would the interface enforce returning a reference? On Feb 6, 2013, at 8:47 AM, Anthony Ferrara <ircmaxell@gmail.com> wrote: > Perhaps there's another way out of this. A simple way would be to introduce > an ArrayAccessReference interface in core that adds the references to the > getters/setters... > > It's perhaps not the cleanest, but it solves the BC issues... > > Anthony > > > On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 11:42 AM, Etienne Kneuss <colder@php.net> wrote: > >> I assume it would be possible technically but might break (at least by >> issuing E_STRICT) a lot of code if we forced ArrayObject::offsetGet to >> return a reference. >> >> Think of all the subclasses that extend ArrayObject who currently do not do >> that? >> >> Other than that, returning a ref where it previously didn't can have all >> kinds of undesirable and hard-to-track consequences. >> >> Best, >> >> >> On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Mike Willbanks <pencap@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Looking at: á >>> ,ä”Cš!°òa³ÃRãhttp://lxr.php.net/xref/PHP_5_5/Zend/zend_interfaces.c#538it >>> seems that ArrayAccess at the moment can not be returned by a reference. >>> I'm wondering if there was a technical reason behind this or if it is >> now >>> a BC reason? >>> >>> Anyhow; I was attempting to dig through the source code a bit more last >>> night to see why ArrayObject could not overload the function declaration >> of >>> offsetGet to force a return by reference aka: function >> &offsetGet($key)... >>> which works now for ArrayAccess but not for ArrayObject. I believe it >> has >>> to deal with ArrayObject inheriting ArrayAccess? Is there a way to allow >>> ArrayObject to change the function declaration in this way? My PHP >>> internals skills are not the best which is the reason for the question. >>> >>> Anyhow; justification wise: in userland this leads to a lot of wtf >> factor. >>> It really comes down to having to provide our own implementation of >>> ArrayObject by extending several different areas including ArrayAccess so >>> that references can be returned so multi-dimensional arrays can be >> properly >>> unset aka: >>> $ar = new ArrayObject(array('foo' => array('bar' => >>> array('baz' => >>> 'foo')))); >>> unset($ar['foo']['bar']['baz']); >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Mike >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Etienne Kneuss >> http://www.colder.ch >>