> On 31.01.2017 at 23:49, Johannes Schlüter wrote:
> There is another context where unquoted strings are used:
>
> $a = [ "foo" => "bar" ];
> echo "Let's go and have a drink in a $a[foo]!";
On 01/02/2017 23:12, Christoph M. Becker wrote:
> This is explicitly mentioned in the RFC's "Unaffected PHP Functionality"
> section[1]. The RFC suggest to keep this shortcut.
Indeed, thanks to whoever put that section in the RFC template. :)
I do think it is a rather odd syntax rule, and not one I would include
if designing PHP from scratch, particularly since putting single quotes
around the key...
echo "Let's go and have a drink in a $a['foo']!";
...results in a rather surprising error:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '' (T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE),
expecting identifier (T_STRING) or variable (T_VARIABLE) or number
(T_NUM_STRING)
The most consistent interpretation would actually be for the [ to be
treated as just part of the string, which would never be a useful result:
Notice: Array to string conversion
Let's go and have a drink in a Array[foo]!
It's just possible that someone would expect "$message[E_WARNING]" to
look up the constant, but since it *never* does, this is less likely to
cause the kind of subtle bugs I describe in the RFC. Plus this syntax is
documented and recommended, whereas the one I propose to remove appears
to have never been either of those things.
> Oh and there's another case:
>
> foo.php?a[foo]=bar
I hadn't thought of that one; I'll add it to the RFC as also not
changing, for all the same reasons.
Indeed, this one has no ambiguity at all, since there is no scope where
constants could be defined in order to populate it.
> I'm not saying we have to change those. But I believe the symmetry there
> is part of the historic reason.
Unless Rasmus, Zeev, or Andy venture down memory lane and tell us
otherwise, I think that's a reasonable theory. The fallback is certainly
usually mentioned when talking about array keys, even though it applies
to any bare word the parser sees.
Regards,
--
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]
