ID: 22216
Comment by: zyss at mail dot zp dot ua
Reported By: tim dot lokot at printsoft dot com
Status: Open
Bug Type: Feature/Change Request
Operating System: All
PHP Version: 4.3.0
New Comment:
It is really needef feature to have in PHP. I miss this feature very
much when function has many arguments or when there are several boolean
arguments that require true/false values or when there are several
arguments with default value set and you want to use only, say, last
argument it would be very helpful to have named arguments support.
Having this feature would dramatically increase code readability.
Even standard functions will be easier to read having this feature. for
example:
in_array($needle, $haystack, $strict => true);
is much easier to read that just
in_array($needle, $haystack, true);
It would be more native to PHP to use named arguments with => like
foo(var2 => $value);
or
foo($var2 => $value);
Previous Comments:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2006-06-14 11:48:29] jason at godsey dot net
<?php
// Missing named arguments work around..
// Set the default/REQUIRED var to something unlikely.
define("REQUIRED", "_^_-" . rand(1000000,99999999) . "-" . time());
function parseRequired (&$defaults, &$args)
{
foreach ($defaults as $key=>$value) {
if(!isset($args["$key"])) {
if ($value == REQUIRED) {
$backtrace = debug_backtrace();
$function = $backtrace[1]["function"];
throw new Exception("function: $function var: \$$key not
defined");
}
$args[$key] = $value;
}
}
return 0;
}
function debugging ($args)
{
$defaults = array(
"name"=>"Lanny Jason Godsey",
"text"=>"This is the default text!",
"date"=>REQUIRED
);
parseRequired($defaults, $args);
print "($args[date]) Welcome $args[name], text entered:
$args[text]\n";
}
debugging(array("name"=>"L. Jason Godsey","date"=>date("Y-m-d")));
?>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2003-02-13 16:59:47] tim dot lokot at printsoft dot com
I know this can be accomplished in other way and also know this has
been brought up before, but they are messy and require code from the
developer to handle this which seems to go against the php ethos of easy
and fast to develop.
If named arguments could be passed to functions and actually processed
by the php parser, then this would be really great. Especially where
function prototypes have default values in them and you only want to set
one of them. The proposed syntax would be something like this:
function foo ($var1="some value", $var2, $var3="some other value")
{
// function code
}
then to call the function would be like this
foo (var2:="value for argument 2 only");
This would also be great if this feature would extend to the existing
functions in the extensions as well.
mail (to:="[EMAIL PROTECTED]", message:="no message", subject:="subject");
This in my opinion makes the function calls more readable in some
circumstances, particularly when you have to keep going back to the
prototype to figure out what the order of the arguments is. It's kind
of self documenting really when you look at code written in this way.
Bug #2285: default arguments skipping
(http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=2285) was filed with a similar
suggestion and the solution suggested was to use associative arrays.
Becuase it was never explained in any of the other reports as to why
this wasn't going to be implemented, why the above not more preferable
to have than always have to implement the same code this:
function foo ($args)
{
// Named Argument Checks
$var1 = "some value";
$var3 = "some other value";
foreach ($args as $key => $value)
{
$$key = $value;
}
// Do function code here
}
foo (array ("var2"=>"some other value again","var1"=>"variable 1"));
Surely forcing developers into using this messy syntax goes against one
of the main strengths of php which is simple code that's easy to read,
understand and develop.
I'm in no wasy saying the above code was hard, just the first example
of named arguments seems to fit more into the php way than the second
example.
If this is to be rejected like the other requests for it, can you
please provide a reason why the array method is more preferable?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Edit this bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=22216&edit=1
