Re: Resurrecting the Function Renaming Thread

Cynic wrote: > The is_numeric function happens to be quite a good example. If PHP really > sticked to the underscore convention, one wouldn't probably have to look at > the manual to use the function. The name lends itself. You could just think, > "well, I bet there's a function for this, and it must be named > 'is_numeric', > because that's what it does. It could never be named foobar. And there'll be > an underscore, because that's what _everything_ looks like in PHP.' And bingo, > you'd be right. However, the reality is, than in PHP, you can never be sure > if it isn't isnumeric or numeric, so you just have to skim the manual. And > when you need to use the function again after two weeks for example, you have > to look again (or try it - _try_, not _do_), because you remember that the > words are 'is' and 'numeric', but you cannot be sure it there's an > underscore > between or not. once upon a time i had added a feature to the 'undefined function' error message that would use the levenshtein function internaly to look for similar names in the registered function list instead of just "PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function: is_set() in ..." it gave "PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function: is_set() in ... maybe you were looking for isset()?" Zeev reverted that patch because finding the right error message to extend was a dirty hack (which it definetly was, but doing better was not possible without crossing the php-zend code barriere) and wanted to implement it in the zend part instead ... -- Hartmut Holzgraefe hartmut@six.de http://www.six.de +49-711-99091-77 Besuchen Sie uns auf der CeBIT 2001 - in Halle 6 Stand F62/4