Re: [RFC] Void Return Type (v0.2, reöpeni ng)

On 14 October 2015 at 22:52, Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me> wrote: > Good evening, > > I'm reviving my Void Return Type RFC, this time for PHP 7.1: > > https://wiki.php.net/rfc/void_return_type > > Please read it and tell me your thoughts! > > Thanks. > > P.S. As it so (fatefully?) happens, I originally introduced this on 14th > February, and it's now 14th October, so it's been exactly 8 months! > > -- > Andrea Faulds > http://ajf.me/ > > -- > PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > Hi, Semantically, I don't believe that there is sufficient difference between "returns no value" and "returns a value which has been defined as having no value" for us to care about it. The main difference you get between return type of null and a return type of void seems to be some extra fatal errors, for a developer there seems little value. From a user confusion point of view; PHP currently considers return; and return null; to be equivalent (in fact some code style checkers will replace one with the other) If (and only if) a function has a return type of void these two statements are no longer equivalent - one is a fatal error one is not. For any other return type specification, return null; and return; would behave the same. This in itself would be enough for me to be against adding a return type of void. (also could someone enable my wiki acc: carnage; sent an email ~a week ago and haven't heard back yet :() ~C