Re: RE: [PHP-DEV] Re: [PHP-QA] $obj = new foo() patch

As I understand it, altering $GLOBALS directly is *UNSUPPORTED* -- Don't do it. Use global and an assignment. Don't dink around with an internal structure ($GLOBALS) to do something where there is instead a documented solution. I believe Rasmus or Zeev even said this on the PHP General list, way back when. ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike Heath <heathm@effinitylabs.com> To: Kirill Maximov <kir@actimind.com> Cc: Andi Gutmans <andi@zend.com>; PHP Development <php-dev@lists.php.net>; <php-qa@lists.php.net>; <danjrod@terra.es> Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 7:09 PM Subject: RE: [PHP-QA] RE: [PHP-DEV] Re: [PHP-QA] $obj = new foo() patch > Kirill and others, > > > Hmm. I thought that > > > > $GLOBALS['a'] = new A; > > > > is absolute equivalent to > > > > global $a; > > $a = new A; > > > > I don't care in this example what is returned by operator 'new'. > > I suppose, that $a in second case should be absolutely equivalent to > > GLOBALS['a'] regardsless right part of '=' sign. > > I though that too but apparantly what happens is $a is created inside the > context of the function and points to the data of the real global $a so if > you do something like $a = &$foo inside the function the real $a's reference > won't change. This should probably be documented better since saying > something "PHP doesn't support C like pointers" doesn't quite cut it. It > took me quite some time (and a number of bug postings) to figure this out. > > > > Anyway, I don't understand why Andi's patch can work in both cases. > > OK, 'new' returns reference. But $a should be === $GLOBALS['a'], IMO. > > Or I've missed something? > > Explained above why not. I fully agree that as that is what is expected but > after looking under the hood of PHP a bit I can see why it isn't. Of course > if I had it my way I'd just get rid of the whole global $foo thing all > together. :) > > > If we want to force 'rich' OO design, let's wait until PHP 5.0. IMO, > > a few peoply will upgrade to 4.0.4 if they'll have to rewrite their code > > (possibly, a LOT of code). > > But, I think, core team understands importance of compatibility issue. > That's > > why Andi reversed the patch for now, isn't it? ;-) > > Well I have to agree with you there. There are a lot of OO features I would > love to see in PHP but I'm certainly not counting on them until future > versions. The problem (regarding Andi's patch) is that the expected > behavior of: > > <?php > class foo { > function foo($a) { > global $ListOfObjects; > > $this->a = a; > $ListOfObjects[] = &$this; > } > > $bar = new foo() > ?> > > would be that $ListOfObjects[0] and $bar referenced the same data. They do > not. This is very frustrating to many people are there are 5 or more bugs > in the bugs database pointing this out. I'm convinced this is a serious > issue and needs to be fixed. I can only pray that *some* fix will get into > PHP 4.0.4. > > (BTW -- regarding my explanation above concerning the difference between > global $foo and $GLOBALS['foo']. This example will still work since I'm not > changing the reference to $ListOfObjects just its array members.) > > Regards, > > Mike > > > -- > PHP Quality Assurance Mailing List <http://www.php.net/> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-qa-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > For additional commands, e-mail: php-qa-help@lists.php.net > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net > >