Description

Javascript support naming anonymous functions, letting the function refer to itself for recursion without polluting the surrounding scope. And it provides better stack traces. For example:

function f(cb) {
    console.log(cb.name); // Output: "funName"
    cb(0);
}

f(function funName(i) {
    // funName is available here
    if (i < 3) {
        console.log(i);
        funName(i + 1);
    }
});
// funName is not available here.

outputting

funName
0
1
2

Would be nice if PHP could support it too. Like

function d(callable $arg) {
    $ref = new ReflectionFunction($arg);
    $name = $ref->getName();
    var_dump($name);
    $arg(0);
}

d(function funName(int $i) {
    if ($i < 3) {
        echo $i, "\n";
        funName($i + 1);
    }
});
// funName is not available here.

printing

string(7) "funName"
0
1
2

Benefits:

• Simplified Recursion: Enables recursive anonymous functions without needing workarounds like use (&$funName) or relying on debug_backtrace() hacks.
• Improved Debugging: Stack traces and error messages involving anonymous functions could show meaningful names instead of just "{closure}"
• Enhanced Metadata Support: When exporting function metadata (for instance, in APIs like OpenAI's ChatGPT tools API), a named anonymous function's name could be deduced automatically via reflection, rather than having to explicitly specify "string $functionName" (already possible if anonymous functions are simply not supported, though)