On Wed, Jun 26, 2024, at 21:59, Richard Miles wrote:
> I think we should have typed arrays in PHP.
Yes! I cannot stand sitting through conference talks on 'generics' that only talk about
'collections'. This could be solved if we had typed arrays. If anything we would get
better talks on Generics. :-)
Arrays of a type is one of the last cases where I need docblocks to tell my editor about the types.
In my opinion, even if we would have some implementation of generics, having typed arrays with a
simple syntax would be awesome.
A syntax suggestion:
$array = stdClass[];
class A {
public stdClass[] $array;
}
Adding an invalid array member should throw TypeError.
I know there are way more edge-case situations to think of (for example: if class B extends A, $b is
of type B[], but holds only A's, can $b be assigned as value of public A[] $a ?)
> Generics or bust.
I do not understand the reasoning behind that. Is it because we really want generics, but when the
95% use-case is solved we fear that there would not be enough momentum to get that? I'd love to
have generics too, but a very simple array syntax would in my opinion still add a lot of value, even
if we already had generics.