On 23/05/2026 6:38 pm, [email protected] wrote:
I would like to propose two new magic constants to PHP: __HOME__ and
__USER__
I strongly oppose this idea.
This kind of information is environment-specific and does not really
belong as a language-level magic constant. Existing magic constants
describe source context (`__FILE__`, `__DIR__`, etc.), not host or user
environment details.
For CLI usage, this information is usually already available through
environment variables such as `HOME` and `USER`, which is the more
appropriate place for this kind of information.
In isolated environments such as containers or chroots, exposing user or
home-directory information is also something we generally should avoid.
More importantly, I think we should discourage PHP web applications from
reaching into other parts of the system and instead encourage them to
stay within their application/web directories.
P.S. Hopefully I'm posting this to the correct list. If not, please
point me to where I need to be.
This is the correct list. Often before starting an official RFC an
e-mail is sent to this mailing list to see if a certain topic/idea has
interest.
--
Regards,
Jordi Kroon
