The existing ArrayIterator has a large API surface. In most cases it will duplicate the input array either out of ease of implementation or as consequence of the API. Given that a significant use case for ArrayIterator is to write generic code for Iterators that also work on arrays, it is a pretty big drawback to always duplicate the array.
Theoretically, I'd like to deprecate basically everything on ArrayIterator except the Countable, Iterator interfaces. This is based on the observation that ArrayObject will do basically all of the same stuff in a more obvious way, so we don't need it for ArrayIterator. Internally, they are basically the same class except for the differences in Iterator and IteratorAggregate APIs. Then, in PHP 9.0 we could make this more efficient. ----- However, I don't want to wait that long, and I suspect it would have too much code churn to remove nicely. The alternative is to make a new array iterator class that has a simple API that avoids duplication of the array. I'm not sure what to name it: - Spl\ArrayIterator - It's a bit confusing, especially because technically \ArrayIterator is in the SPL. - ArrayValueIterator - Its name suggests it is only the array's values that are iterated over, and would skip keys. This was suggested simultaneously with ArrayReferenceIterator, which would hold the inner array by reference. In that context the name makes a bit more sense, but I don't know what use cases there are that wouldn't be served by existing ArrayObject/ArrayIterator. - SimpleArrayIterator? - ForwardArrayIterator? This would go along nicely with a ReverseArrayIterator, I guess. Anyone other ideas? -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: https://www.php.net/unsub.php
