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php

$a{} stuff

php.internals

Derick Rethans

22 years ago

Hello,

due to a little discussion on IRC I noticed that the following code
works:

<?php
$a = "foobar";
$a{strlen($a)-1};
?>

now IMO the offset should only be a simple integer value, as this is a
little bit too much magic to me (and perlish). Although the code above
can have it's use, the following does also work fine:

file1.php
<?php
return 4;
?>

file2.php
<?php
$a = "foobar";
echo $a{include 'file1.php'};
?>

echos 'a'.

I think this sideeffect should be disallowed as it adds a lot of
unreadableness to code. (I do als vagely remember a discussion a year or
something ago which resulted in something like "the offset to a string
should be an integer only, and not for example {1..4} or {-1}". Can't
find this though in the archives.

regards,
Derick

Rasmus Lerdorf

22 years ago

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, Derick Rethans wrote:

> I think this sideeffect should be disallowed as it adds a lot of
> unreadableness to code. (I do als vagely remember a discussion a year or
> something ago which resulted in something like "the offset to a string
> should be an integer only, and not for example {1..4} or {-1}". Can't
> find this though in the archives.

That's a different argument.  {1..4} and {-1} both introduce new concepts.
I see no reason why {} cannot contain exactly the same things that [] can
contain today.  And if suddenly [] could only contain integers pretty much
every PHP script I have ever written would break.  The whole point of {}
is to explicitly differentiate an string index from an array index.  How
that index is specified inside the braces shouldn't differ from one to the
other.

-Rasmus

Edin Kadribasic

22 years ago

On Saturday, Jan 3, 2004, at 22:35 Europe/Copenhagen, Derick Rethans
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> due to a little discussion on IRC I noticed that the following code
> works:
>
> <?php
> 	$a = "foobar";
> 	$a{strlen($a)-1};
> ?>
>
> now IMO the offset should only be a simple integer value, as this is a
> little bit too much magic to me (and perlish).

What is a "simple integer value"? You mean only to allow integer
constants here? How are you supposed to process a string char by char
without some sort of calculation of string offset?

Edin