Return values in constructor

Hi, I have been working on PHP-Sat, a tool for statically analyzing PHP source code. This tool currently supports 14 bugpatterns, one of them finds constructors with a return value. This pattern is partly based on this thread: http://beeblex.com/lists/index.php/php.pear.qa/531?s=l:php.pear.qa in which Michael Wallner reports 11 constructors that return a value. I examined the stable packages from pear with the use of the tool and found 13 constructors that (still) return a value. Some of the constructors are even documented with a '@return' which states that the constructors actually return these values. I was wondering whether a return value in a constructor is considered a bug within Pear. It does not break the code, but it is useless and could potentially confuse other programmers. Kind regards, Eric Bouwers === The following projects - files - classes have a constructor that returns a value: Archive:

 Tar.php                  - Archive_Tar

Auth:

 PrefManager.php    - Auth_PrefManager

Crypt/;

 CDC.php               - Crypt_CBC

DB:

 NestedSet.php       - DB_NestedSet_Node
 Table.php              - DB_Table

HTML:

 Progress/DM.php    - HTML_Progress_DM
 Progress.php          - HTML_Progress
 Table.php               - HTML_Table

Mail_Queue:

 Queue.php             - Mail_Queue

Net_Geo:

 Geo.php                - Net_Geo

Chemistry:

 Coordinates           - Science_Chemistry_Coordinates

SOAP:

 Value.php              - SOAP_Attachment

System:

 Mount.php             - System_Mount_Entry