Hi Carlos,
The proposal looks simple on the surface, but it implicitly introduces a
non-trivial policy for interpreting array keys, which is problematic at the
language level.
In PHP, array keys are intentionally loose — any string is a valid key,
including ones containing dots or other separators. Introducing
"array_get()" / "array_has()" with dot-notation means that a plain string
key like "'user.name'" is no longer unambiguously a key; it may be
interpreted as a path. That creates a semantic conflict with existing,
perfectly valid data structures.
This is not just a syntactic concern — it’s a shift in the data model. The
function starts encoding assumptions about how keys should be interpreted,
rather than operating on arrays as they are defined by the language.
We can already see that this space is not universally agreed upon:
- Laravel and Symfony both provide similar helpers, but they use different
path semantics.
- Questions like escaping, null handling, distinguishing “missing key” vs
“null value”, or supporting ArrayAccess / objects are all policy decisions,
not language primitives.
Because of that, these helpers are inherently convention-driven, not
semantically neutral. Different ecosystems solve them differently, which is
a strong signal that this abstraction belongs in userland, where such
conventions can be chosen explicitly and consistently.
Putting this into core would effectively standardize one arbitrary
interpretation of array paths, while PHP arrays themselves do not have such
a concept.
Additionally, allowing "$key" to accept an "array" further weakens the
conceptual model. A variable named "$key" strongly implies a single scalar
identifier, while an array represents a sequence of path segments —
effectively a different abstraction ("path", "segments", etc.). Mixing
these under a single parameter name blurs the intent and makes the API
harder to reason about.
In short:
"array_get()" with path notation does not operate on PHP arrays as defined
— it operates on a particular convention for interpreting keys. That makes
it better suited for userland libraries than for the core language.
Kind regards,
--
Michał Marcin Brzuchalski
sob., 4 kwi 2026, 16:07 użytkownik Barel <[email protected]> napisał:
> Hi,
>
> I would like to open the discussion on my proposal to add two small,
> focused array functions for retrieving and checking nested array elements
> using dot notation.
>
> This is the link to the RFC:
> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/array_get_and_array_has
>
> This is the link to the proposed implementation:
> https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/21637
>
> Thanks!!
>
> Carlos
>
