That's an interesting spin on the idea, but it takes away the ability to lazy-evaluate an entire path - now it works only for the last property, which may not always be optimal or desirable.
I don't personally have a problem with putting the operator before the expression, I think that's clear enough - it's clear enough for the // and # comment operators, for example, that the entire line will be commented out. If you don't agree with that, maybe it should be a grouping operator, e.g. a start and an end symbol? Even harder to find characters that won't conflict though... On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 4:24 AM, Lazare Inepologlou <linep...@gmail.com>wrote: > > > 2013/5/2 Bernhard Schussek <bschus...@gmail.com> > >> 2013/5/1 Rasmus Schultz <ras...@mindplay.dk> >> >> > > One could >> > > write a PropertyReference class right now with literally the only >> > > difference being the lack of a builtin operator (ie new >> > > PropertyReference($obj, 'prop') versus ^$obj->prop): the fact that >> > > nobody seems to have done this in a major framework I know of suggests >> > > that there isn't a strong need for encapsulating the indirection >> > > beyond the $obj->$prop syntax that's worked forever. >> > > >> > >> > Look at the Symfony form-builder example - encapsulating the >> indirection is >> > *precisely* what they're doing: the object reference is stored in the >> > form-builder, and property-names are added subsequently. >> > >> >> As the developer of the Symfony Form component, I would like to clarify >> that this is not true. At the time the property reference is stored, the >> object it refers to is not (necessarily) known. You could build an >> abstract >> form definition for "Author" instances, but only later instantiate a form >> for that definition with a concrete object. So to be really useful in a >> form context, property references need to be separated from object >> instances (something like "^Author::$firstName" could work). >> >> Second, it is important that references can span multiple nodes in an >> object/array graph. In Symfony, we built the PropertyAccess component for >> that [1] which allows references like >> >> "authors[0].personalDetails[firstName]" >> >> which translates to >> >> ->getAuthors()[0]->getPersonalDetails()['firstName'] >> >> or >> >> ->authors[0]->getPersonalDetails()['firstName'] >> >> > > I have an idea regarding the syntax. The suggested ^ operator is > troublesome, because it does not make clear that whatever follows will not > be evaluated. This becomes even more confusing when dealing with multiple > nodes, as the example above, where part of the expression has to be > evaluated. > > Let's have something different: > > $obj~>property > MyClass::~property > > > This syntax can be easily applied to multiple nodes, without confusion: > > ->getAuthors()[0]->getPersonalDetails()~>firstName > > And it can be applied statically: > > Author::~firstName > > > > > Lazare Inepologlou > Ingénieur Logiciel > >
