Re: Array dereferencing of scalars

Yasuo Ohgaki wrote on 11/06/2015 00:50:

If PHP should return NULL always against NULL variables, we may be better to reconsider these behavior. [yohgaki@dev Download]$ php <?php $v = NULL; $$v; PHP Notice: Undefined variable: in - on line 3

This is not complaining that $v is NULL, it is warning you the same as if you wrote $v = 'some_name_you_never_assigned_to'; $$v; Somewhat surprisingly, you can actually assign to the variable whose name is NULL: http://3v4l.org/5pXJg

[yohgaki@dev Download]$ php <?php $v = NULL; $v(); PHP Fatal error: Uncaught EngineException: Function name must be a string in -:3 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in - on line 3

This one has given a different message because of it being a non-string value, but would be equally fatal if you tried to call any undefined function. Would coercing NULL to an imaginary function which returns NULL actually be useful for anything?

I don't care much whether these yield NULL always or raise error/exception, but there should be consistency.

I see no reason why these cases need to be consistent, just because they both involve NULLs. It's all about the action you invoke, not just the value something's interpreted as. -- Rowan Collins [IMSoP]