On Friday, May 15th, 2026 at 10:56 AM, Zebulan
<[email protected]> wrote:
> How would generic types be expressed in parameters and return types?
>
> ```php
> // Current RFC:
> function DoStuff<T>(myParam: T, otherParam: int): T {
> // ...
> }
> ```
>
> Existing PHP versions will have no clue what `T` is. Only one of the uses of
> `T` here is inside `<...>`. Wrapping the others in `#<...>` would be
> syntactically incoherent (and rather ugly, I think). But the only alternative
> that comes to mind is:
>
> ```php
> function DoStuff#<T>(myParam#: T, otherParam: int)#: T {}
>
> // which would have to look like this in projects continuing to support prior
> PHP versions:
> function DoStuff#<T>
> (
> myParam#: T
> , otherParam: int // bizarre comma placement
> )#: T
> {
> // ...
> }
> ```
>
> Syntax parsing would, I suspect, be rather more complicated, unless you
> required the type to be placed in parentheses, which would only make the
> syntax even less appealing:
>
>
> ```php
> function DoStuff#<T>(myParam#:(T), otherParam: int)#:(T) {}
>
> // and in projects continuing to support prior PHP versions:
> function DoStuff#<T>
> (
> myParam#:(T)
> , otherParam: int
> )#:(T)
> {
> // ...
> }
> ```
Whoops, my mind was in TypeScript-mode and I used suffix-style param types in
my examples. Still, as Larry's comment points out, the `#`-style syntax is
still pretty ugly (in fact, it might actually be worse) with actual PHP-style
syntax.
