On Tue, May 21, 2024, at 6:47 PM, Bilge wrote:
> On 22/05/2024 00:31, Larry Garfield wrote:
>> I could see an argument for auto-populating the backing value off the enum
>> name if it's not specified, something like this: enum Options: string {
>> case First; // This implicitly gets "First"
>> case Second = '2nd';
>> }
> This seems like a reasonable compromise. In this case, all I need to do
> is change my enum to a backed enum (suffix `: string`) and I get the
> benefits of implicit values. I still like the idea of the same being
> possible for non-backed enums, though I imagine that is a product of my
> naïveté, as I do not tend to think of things in the framing of
> (de)serialization.
Making it really hard and unnatural for people to use PHP enums as "cheap named
strings/ints" is something we want to keep, because the whole value of enums is
that they are their own separate type. A Direction is not a string, it's not
an int, it's not an array, it's not a Product, it's a Direction. That's the
end of it. Databases and HTML don't know from Direction or Product, though, so
it has to get serialized down to something for those. For arbitrary objects,
you basically have to write your own mechanism. (I did.) For enums, one comes
built-in to make it more standardized: backed enums.
>> I'm not sure if I'd support it myself at the moment
> Noted, but I once again find myself needing to ask: why not? Were it up
> to me, I'd say let's start right now! :)
Mainly because I haven't thought it through to see what possible issues it
could cause. It may be safe, or there may be currently-not-obvious issues that
would result. That's the sort of thing we'd need to explore.
For instance, how useful would it be, given that the casing for an enum should
be CamelCase (per PER-CS), but the serialized string is most often snake_case,
and otherwise lowerCamel? We definitely cannot bake case folding magic into
the behavior. So is it even useful at that point? I don't know. Maybe.
That's what needs to be explored.
It's not something I'm planning to work on myself at this point, though if
someone else wanted to dig into it I'm happy to help brainstorm with them.
--Larry Garfield
