> On Dec 21, 2020, at 16:15, Mike Schinkel <m...@newclarity.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Dec 20, 2020, at 9:09 PM, Ben Ramsey <b...@benramsey.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Dec 19, 2020, at 19:43, tyson andre <tysonandre...@hotmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> It can be useful to verify that the assumption that array keys are
>>> consecutive integers is correct, both for data that is being passed
>>> into a module or for validating data before returning it from a
>>> module. However, because it's currently inconvenient to do that, this
>>> has rarely been done in my experience.
>> 
>> I think there are some places where `is_list()` could be unintuitive to
>> those who don’t understand some of the idiosyncrasies of PHP.
>> 
>> For example, with
>> 
>>    $a = ['foo', 'bar', 'baz’];
>> 
>> `is_list()` will return `true`, but if you run `$a` through `asort()`,
>> `is_list()` will return `false` because the keys are no longer
>> consecutive integers, but is there any doubt this is still a list?
>> Maybe in a pure sense, it’s not, but I think this could be confusing.
>> 
>> But now, if we do
>> 
>>    $b = array_merge($a, ['qux', 'quux']);
>> 
>> `$b` is now back to being a list, so `is_list($b)` returns `true`.
>> 
>> While I understand the convenience `is_list()` provides--I myself have
>> implemented the opposite of this numerous times (e.g.,
>> `is_dict()`)--it comes close to implying a data type that PHP doesn’t
>> have, and I think this could give a false sense of type-safety-ness
>> when using this function to check whether something is a 0-indexed
>> array.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Ben
>> 
> 
> Would either is_zero_based() or is_zero_indexed() be a reasonable
> name instead?
> 
> -Mike
> 
> P.S. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-based_numbering

I don’t think changing the name changes my concern, but as Tyson
pointed out:

> These idiosyncrasies of php and unintuitive behaviors existed prior
> to this RFC.

I’m generally +1 on this RFC, but as I think about it, maybe there is a
problem with the name. If we choose to introduce a pure list construct
at some point, then `is_list()` may cause confusion (or maybe it won’t,
if it can be made to return `true` for a zero-indexed, standard PHP
array *and* a `list`, whatever that might look like in the language).

Cheers,
Ben



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