Re: [RFC Discussion] Typed Properties

Hi Phil, On 16 March 2016 at 17:36, Phil Sturgeon <pjsturgeon@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I have completed the draft for an RFC, to add Typed Properties. The > patch has been written by the one and only Joe Watkins. > > https://wiki.php.net/rfc/typed-properties > > I would really appreciate constructive feedback on this RFC, with a > few areas especially: > > 1. How scared are we that integers can be expanded to floats on runtime? > > 2. This whole temporary nullability situation, where unset properties > will error on attempted usage if not set. Should they instead error > after the constructor has been called if they are still not holding a > value? > > 3. Weak vs Strict. Right now this is entirely strict, with no > declare() to change mode. Reasons for this vary, from various sources, > but include "Not sure how to implement it" and "Well people should not > be using properties as part of their public API". > > Help on 3 would be appreciated. > > Also let's please avoid "PHP IS TURNING INTO JAVA" and the other > rather common rhetoric. Strict Type Hinting might have been seen as a > battleground for fans of strict and fans of weak to fight through a > keyboard, but this RFC will not be the repeat. > > We'll have a nice, orderly, constructive conversation about this RFC, > and improve the patch as you all provide feedback. > > Let me know what you think folks! > I really love the RFC, thanks for working with Joe on this. That said, I have a few quite common use-cases that arise and that are a bit problematic, both because they are hacks and because they are actually used in large projects. Specifically, I'm worried about two particular use-cases: * unsetting properties * by-ref property assignment To clarify, un-setting properties allows us to hide properties completely, loading them on a per-usage basis: class Foo public int $bar; public function __construct() { unset($this->bar); // is this operation legal? For BC compliance, I'd expect that to be the case } public function __get(string $name) { initialize_properties_here($this); // external thing connecting to db, loading files, yadda yadda } } var_dump((new Foo())->bar); // what happens here? can initialize_properties_here actually assign a non-int to $bar? Will the type safety still work? The by-ref property assignment is a bit trickier, but can probably be worked around with some overhead (re-assigning). Here's what is going on: class Foo public int $bar; public function __construct() { unset($this->bar); } public function __get(string $name) { $this->bar = 123; // default value $props = ['bar' => & $this->bar]; // is this operation now considered illegal? initialize_properties_here($props); // external thing connecting to db, loading files, yadda yadda } } In addition to these questions, I think that the reflection API also needs a ReflectionProperty#getType() : ReflectionType addition in order for the RFC to be complete. Cheers, Marco Pivetta http://twitter.com/Ocramius http://ocramius.github.com/