On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 2:35 PM, Rasmus Schultz <ras...@mindplay.dk> wrote:
> > > > This is a fringe feature, as evidenced by the fact that you > > are having a hard time convincing people that it is needed > > > As with anything that isn't already established and well-known, it's hard > to convince anyone they need anything they don't understand - I think the > barrier here is me having difficulty explaining a new idea/concept. That > doesn't make it a fringe feature - I have already demonstrated by example > how this would be useful in practically every mainstream framework. > > Properties simply don't carry > > this information with them so a lot of things would have to change > > internally for this to ever work > > > I'm not sure what information you're referring to? > > Let's say for the sake of argument, I'm going to use a pre-processor to > transform the following code: > > $prop = ^$user->name; > > var_dump($nameprop->getValue()); // => 'Rasmus' > > $nameprop->setValue('Bob'); > > var_dump($nameprop->getValue()); // => 'Bob' > > The pre-processor output might look like this: > > $nameprop = new PropertyReference($user, 'name'); // $prop = ^$user->name; > So basically you want to introduce syntactic sugar for: new PropertyReference($user, 'name') The only reason being that the syntax "^$user->name" is "more static" than new PropertyReference($user, 'name'), and thus easier to refactor? To me they really look equivalent from a refactoring point of view. In any case, as many already pointed out, this sounds like a lot of pain for really little (if any) gain. > > var_dump($nameprop->getValue()); // => 'Rasmus' > > $nameprop->setValue('Bob'); > > var_dump($nameprop->getValue()); // => 'Bob' > > Only the first line changes - the rest behaves and runs like any normal PHP > code. > > And the PropertyReference class could be implemented in plain PHP like > this: > > class PropertyReference > { > private $_object; > > private $_propertyName; > > public function __construct($object, $propertyName) > { > $this->_object = $object; > $this->_propertyName = $propertyName; > } > > public function getObject() > { > return $this->_object; > } > > public function getPropertyName() > { > return $this->_propertyName; > } > > public function getValue() > { > return $this->_object->{$this->_propertyName}; > } > > public function setValue($value) > { > $this->_object->{$this->_propertyName} = $value; > } > > // and maybe: > > public function getReflection() > { > return new ReflectionObject($this->_object); > } > } > > > You can see the above example running in a sandbox here: > > > http://sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/87c57301e0f6babb51026192bd3db84ddaf84c83 > > Someone said they didn't think this would work for accessors, so I'm > including a running sample with a User model that uses accessors: > > > http://sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/f2922b3a5dc0e12bf1e6fcacd8e73ff80717f3cb > > Note that the dynamic User::$name property in this example is properly > documented and will reflect in an IDE. > > > On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 8:43 PM, Rasmus Lerdorf <ras...@lerdorf.com> > wrote: > > > On 04/30/2013 05:17 PM, Rasmus Schultz wrote: > > > > > If the asterisk (or some other character) offers and easier > > > implementation path, whatever. > > > > It doesn't. This is a fringe feature, as evidenced by the fact that you > > are having a hard time convincing people that it is needed, and thus > > shouldn't overload an existing operator. Visually it would be confusing > > to take any well-known operator and give it a different obscure meaning. > > But yes, syntax-wise ^ could be made to work, the implementation problem > > I referred to is lower-level than that. Properties simply don't carry > > this information with them so a lot of things would have to change > > internally for this to ever work and if a clean implementation could be > > found, like I said, adding it to the reflection functions is the proper > > place. > > > > -Rasmus > > > -- Etienne Kneuss http://www.colder.ch