On 18/01/2023 21:25, G. P. B. wrote:
I would like to start the discussion on the Path to Saner
Increment/Decrement operators RFC:
https://wiki.php.net/rfc/saner-inc-dec-operators
The goal of this RFC is to reduce language complexity by making $v++
behave like $v += 1 and $v-- behave like $v -= 1;
If that is the goal, then I would agree with this RFC.
However, changing the PERL string increment feature does not IMO fit
into that goal, and it also a useful*feature*. On that base I would
vote against this. And I suspect many others would as well.
However, the ++ and -- are the "Increment" and "Decrement" operators,
not the Add1 and Subtract1 operators; while they behave in that way when
used with variables containing numeric values, they are special
operators and not simply a syntactic sugar for +=1 and -=1. As long as
their behaviour is consistent, and definition of what "Increment" and
"Decrement" mean is clearly defined for different datatypes, then I feel
that the PERL-style alpha string increment has enough valid use cases to
justify itself.
We might also discuss consistency of datatype changes when these
operators are used.
$a = PHP_INT_MAX;
++$a;
or
$a = '10';
++$a;
both change the datatype of $a; which isn't documented behaviour either.
--
Mark Baker
