Re: [PHP4BETA] cvs: /php4 php.h /php4/ext/standard basic_functions.c basic_functions.h php3_string.h string.c /php4/tests testarray

At 03:13 PM 9/20/99 -0400, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:

For example, the two functions I added today, to obtain the the number of arguments and a certain argument, definitely belong in PHP and not Zend. I assume you have PHP and Zend reversed in this sentence?

Yep.

Basic functions, such as strlen(), and basic array manipulation functions such as count() and each(), also belong in Zend, since you would need them in any program that embeds Zend, be it PHP or MySQL. Error reporting level, which is something that's built into the scripting engine, should also be controllable from Zend, whether this is PHP or some other program. I can see this. But let's try to avoid having any user callable functions named zend_* unless they are really querying something in Zend's internals. We definitely don't want zend_strlen() at the user-level, for example. The idea behind the PHP/Zend separation, is that Zend can be unbundled and included in something else. This separation should work in both directions. If someone was to write a different scripting engine they would need to provide a compatible API as well as engine-internal implementations of something like strlen() and as such calling it zend_strlen() is not logical. I think it is important to keep people from confusing Zend with PHP and make sure the distinction is clear. Especially once the Zend engine starts showing up in other places.

I can't remember ever having suggested prefixing those functions with zend_. Obviously we would not want something like that. Andi --- Andi Gutmans <andi@zend.com> http://www.zend.com/