On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 10:45:34AM -0700, Stas Malyshev wrote:
> Hi!
>
> >I see many advantages of the introduction of return type hinting.
> >- you can guarantee that your methods returns only what is explicitly
> >stated (or else it blows up, the same as for arguments)
>
> You can't, because function resolution happens in runtime, so the only
> point you know what the function called "foo" returns is the moment
> where you're already calling it, not a moment before.
The Zend engine does function resolution at run time - others (eg HipHop)
can afford to do it at compile time and so will know at compile time.
I will accept that sometimes it must always be done run time, eg:
$funcName($arg)
but that still allows most calls at compile time.
Anyway - the check for return type would be done in the called function,
not the calling function.
> >- I think maybe the language itself could use that information, for
> >performance, etc. improvements (we know that the return value will be
>
> That would need static compile-time binding of functions, which implies
> static binding of includes, etc. - basically, compiling PHP code as a
> whole in one monolitic application.
Which might be acceptable for some applications. For those where it is not
then this feature may not be useful. This is an *optional* declaration,
not mandatory - so if it does not suit your purpose -- don't use it.
--
Alain Williams
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