Hi!
1- A class that implements ArrayAccess must be useable everywhere an
"array" is useable;
The problem is that many functions dealing with arrays do not make sense
with generic object. For others, it may make sense in theory, but not be
practical - e.g., suppose you have ArrayAccess object referring to a
database field, how easy would be to make shuffle() work on it? How
practical would it be?
2- ArrayAccess needs to be expanded with methods for all the array
functions and ArrayObject needs to implement them;
All 70+ of them? That'd be one fat interface.
How would it be achieved?
$coll->sort(); instead of sort($coll);
$coll2 = $coll->reverse(); instead of $coll2 = array_reverse($coll);
Note that this also eats up a lot of useful names, and makes you
implement functions that you would never use, such as picking a random
element or finding difference between arrays.
I think all array operations should be divided into following classes:
1. Basic ones, probably ArrayAccess/Iterator interface should be enough
2. Compound ones implemented on top of basic ones (i.e. array_sum is a
combination of iteration and +, etc.)
3. Additional operations non-reducible to (1), like shift/unsift or
exotic ones like array_change_key_case().
First two classes are easy to handle, the last one should be handled
separately on per-case basis.
--
Stanislav Malyshev, Zend Software Architect
s...@zend.com http://www.zend.com/
(408)253-8829 MSN: s...@zend.com
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