On 10/06/2020 19:28, Claude Pache wrote:
One parsing error that I still find dreadful after more than 10 years of PHP
coding, is: unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING. Although
T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING is like Hebrew for me, I’ve learned with time that
when I get such an error, it means that I’ve most probably omitted or mistyped
some punctuation mark somewhere.
I think this is a really good point, and I would like to expand on it:
rather than renaming T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM, we should simply ensure the
user never needs to see it.
A long time ago, PHP's parser errors were extremely cryptic, e.g.
"::::::::::" would tell you:
> Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM
Since PHP 5.4 (according to https://3v4l.org/Hdjk8) the error message
includes the actual token encountered:
> Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '::' (T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM)
If I understand correctly, the current proposal will instead give us this:
> Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '::' (T_DOUBLE_COLON)
But why not simply this:
> Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '::'
Imagine you are a new PHP developer, who has only the vaguest idea of
what "parse" means; along with '::' (T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM) you may
encounter such mysteries as these:
'<<' (T_SL)
'>>' (T_SR)
__NAMESPACE__ (T_NS_C)
''foo'' (T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING) [which is a string, not a constant]
'foo' (T_STRING) [which is definitely not a string, but might be a constant]
... (T_ELLIPSIS) [a lot of people will misread this as "ellipse", a much
more common word]
** (T_POW) [is that the Star Trek character, or the rock band named
after her?]
Even straight-forward names like '==' (T_IS_EQUAL) are confusing - for
years I wondered what that "T_" meant, my experience with Delphi making
me guess at "type", which didn't make much sense.
I can see a small advantage of including something that is easy to
search for; but how often does the solution to a parse error depend on
exactly what the unexpected token was, so that searching for "Parse
error: syntax error, unexpected" wouldn't give enough of a hint?
Other information currently missing from the message - e.g. column
number, hints about unclosed blocks - is likely to be far more useful.
Regards,
--
Rowan Tommins (né Collins)
[IMSoP]
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