Hi
Am 2025-05-19 12:48, schrieb Volker Dusch:
We're still looking for feedback on the ...variadic approach to the
Syntax:
https://wiki.php.net/rfc/clone_with_v2#open_issues, as we only got one
reply so far on the topic.
I was hoping for some additional opinions here before adding my own, but
since this does not appear to happen, adding my personal opinion on this
matter now:
*Some* property name being completely incompatible with “clone with” (no
matter how the first parameter is going to be called) is a limitation
that should not exist, it feels like a feature that is broken by design
and I think I really would hate it if the documentation of this RFC
would need a “Caution: It is not possible to reassign a property called
'$object', due to a parameter name conflict”.
Adjusting the signature to `clone(object $object, array
$withProperties)` would not have this problem and I don't consider the
additional verbosity of an array literal to be a problem. Static
analysis tools already understand array shapes and would need
adjustments either way to understand the semantics.
From an implementation PoV a regular array parameter would also be
simpler, since the implementation would be able to simply pass along the
input array, whereas the “variadic” syntax needs special handling to
combine positional parameters with named parameters into a single array
that is then used in the cloning process.
Syntax-wise there might also be a middle-ground. Similarly to how this
RFC turns `clone()` into a function, the `array()` syntax also looks
like a function call and would naturally extend to named parameters.
While mixing positional and named parameters would probably get complex,
allowing purely named parameters would trivially be possible (without
any function call overhead). It would also allow using the
first-class-callable syntax with `array(...)`, something I would liked
to have in the past. A proof of concept PR is at:
https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/18613
Combining named-parameter `array()` syntax with clone taking a array as
the second parameter would allow for the following, which might combine
the best of both worlds?
clone($obj, array(foo: 1, bar: "baz", object: "this is not
blocked"));
Best regards
Tim Düsterhus
