From: Arvids Godjuks [mailto:[email protected]]
> > I like that. What should we do if this appears? As it's now - just
> > throw an "Catchable fatal error" and let the script blow-up? I would
> > go this far.
>
> I think "Catchable fatal error should" be fine and users are familiar with
> such mechanic because it already exists. Consistency, man, consistency :)
Yeah, I was a huge advocate of this too until recently. I've changed my mind
though, ironically enough to ensure better consistency.
PHP since 5.3 gives an E_WARNING if you pass poorly-converting scalar data to
an internal function (For example, substr('foo', 'bar');) This changed my mind
about the level of error to raise here. I think there's still a good argument
for E_CATCHABLE_FATAL if you pass something retarded (like a resource, or
possibly even an array), but I think we should strive as far as possible to be
consistent with the behavior of scalars passed to internal functions. This
would allow us to repaint the entire proposal as bringing to the language level
the same level of scalar typing available internally, using the same syntax as
the docs (which sounds much more reasonable and less politically charged than
"Please add scalar typing...again".)
See Ferenc's reply about 30 seconds ago for more details on this...
> > Type hints are meant to
> > filter input from external sources
>
> Correction, it should read like this:
> Type hints are _not_ meant to filter input from external sources
That's not really the point though. The issues with external sources providing
strings comes into play regardless of whether people validated their inputs.
For example, if (is_numeric($priority) && $priority >= 0 && $priority <= 3)
will pass and still leaves you with a string, and that string currently works
just fine everywhere as if it were an integer. What's more, the folks that will
be voting on this have made it clear in the past that failure to account for
type juggling in any such proposal is a deal breaker. For many users these
inputs can and will trickle down through the code and eventually cause
frustrating failures if not handled intelligently. You don't have to love it,
but basically if you want a typing proposal to have any chance I think you'll
have to support it.
John Crenshaw
Priacta, Inc.
