On Mon, February 27, 2012 8:29 am, Michael Morris wrote:
> Both of these must be
> declared formally (otherwise PHP assumes scalar)
I believe you mean "dynamic" or "loose" datatyping.
Scalar would imply that you couldn't do this:
array $a = array(); //force $a to always be array, and never anything
else
object $o = new Object(); //ditto, only object
> // A tolerant variable.
> integer $a = 3;
>
> // A strict variable
> strict integer $b = 2;
>
> Tolerant variables silently cast values to their declared datatype.
> Maybe they should raise E_NOTICE?
Raising E_NOTICE is a backwards compatible "break" of little added value.
Programmers who want their variables strongly typed will use strict,
those who don't won't.
A proposal that includes an explicit "loose" or "dynamic", which means
the default behavior, but is self-documenting as intentional
loose-ness would be a better idea, imho.
The idea is sound, though I daresay the actual implementation may be
problematic to the point of "impossible".
PRESUMPTION:
*ANY* strict datatype could also be NULL, to represent a failure
condition...
Otherwise, when you are out of RAM:
strict $o = new Object(); //violates strict, because Object HAS to be
NULL, as there is no RAM left for it to be an object.
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