Re: [RFC] Bare Name Array

On Sun, 2014-06-01 at 18:59 +0100, Andrea Faulds wrote: > Good evening, > > I have created an RFC containing two proposals. > > The first is a less cumbersome syntax for arrays. At present, string > keys in arrays are declared like this: > > “stringKey” => 3, > > That’s a whole five characters, seven including spaces, for your most > common case (identifier-like key). In JavaScript, you can avoid > quoting the key for this common case. I propose something similar for > PHP. Where the key fits the profile of IS_STRING, this RFC proposes > that you can do this instead: > > stringKey: 3, > > Now it’s only two characters, three including spaces, for the most > common case. It makes declaring arrays more convenient. I don't believe in "less characters is better". I consider having two syntaxes which work *notably* different confusing. const FOO = 23; $a = [ FOO => 42, FOO: 3.14152 ]; will lead to quite confusing results. We shouldn't go there imo. > The second proposal is a less cumbersome syntax for dereferencing > arrays with string keys. At present, you need to do this: > > $myArray[“foobar”][“andSoOn”][“moreKeys”][“etc”] > > That’s four characters per dereference. Yet for objects, only two are > needed: > > $myObject->foobar->andSoOn->moreProps->etc > > Thus, this RFC also proposes the following syntax for dereferencing > arrays with string keys, where said keys fit the profile of IS_STRING: > > $myArray:>foobar:>andSoOn:>moreProps:>etc > > The :> syntax can be considered provisional, I’m open to better > alternatives. Same as above - the benefit is minimal and might be easily misleading. johannes