Hi all, I'd like to gauge interest in deprecating `return` inside a `finally` block, before I request karma to propose it as a full RFC.
A `return` inside a `finally` silently discards whatever the `try`/`catch` was doing...a pending exception or return value just disappears, with no error or notice. As far as I know, it's the only abrupt exit from a `finally` PHP leaves silent... `break`/`continue`/`goto` out of one are already compile errors, and a `throw` auto-chains the discarded exception as `$previous`. Only `return` destroys the in-flight state and says nothing. Looking into the history of `finally` I found that the author of the original RFC said he added it only because Java allowed it, even though he thought it made "no sense" https://externals.io/message/61670#61678 But Java itself warns about it (`javac -Xlint:finally`). I also found that it was the source of a few bugs: - https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=70228 - https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=72213 - https://github.com/php/php-src/issues/11028 To see what a change would actually cost, I implemented the deprecation <https://github.com/php/php-src/compare/master...aldemeery:php-src:deprecate-return-in-finally> and ran it over the top ~5000 Composer packages. And I found that it's rare...there were only 12 occurrences across 9 packages out of 4992. Of those, 3 look like genuine latent bugs the deprecation caught, and the rest look deliberate. Here's the list of the occurrences: 1. ibexa/admin-ui (swallows the exceptions its own docblock declares) <https://github.com/ibexa/admin-ui/blob/2322d54/src/bundle/Controller/ContentTypeController.php#L834> 2. shopware/core (eats thumbnail failures and still reports success) <https://github.com/shopware/core/blob/e8079a0/Content/Media/Thumbnail/ThumbnailService.php#L294> 3. amphp/http-server (drops exceptions when the stream is already gone) <https://github.com/amphp/http-server/blob/b306134/src/Driver/Http2Driver.php#L1322> 4. dvdoug/PHPCoord (deliberate...finally is the method's return) <https://github.com/dvdoug/PHPCoord/blob/ced02c4/src/Point/CompoundPoint.php#L131> 5. dvdoug/PHPCoord (again) <https://github.com/dvdoug/PHPCoord/blob/ced02c4/src/Point/GeocentricPoint.php#L148> 6. dvdoug/PHPCoord (again) <https://github.com/dvdoug/PHPCoord/blob/ced02c4/src/Point/GeographicPoint.php#L221> 7. dvdoug/PHPCoord (again) <https://github.com/dvdoug/PHPCoord/blob/ced02c4ad44aa4a558f69d53af4834a9d50ab2aa/src/Point/ProjectedPoint.php#L242-L247> 8. spatie/ray (delibrate...any failure just returns false) <https://github.com/spatie/ray/blob/2da2079/src/Client.php#L71> 9. cakephp/cakephp (catch consumed the exception...finally just returns array) <https://github.com/cakephp/cakephp/blob/eef91f28de119bee5536905244d2096f752f2920/src/Database/Query.php#L1748-L1755> 10. hyperf/http-server (catch consumed the exception...finally emits response) <https://github.com/hyperf/http-server/blob/80c52d4/src/Server.php#L140> 11. silverstripe/framework (catch consumed the mysqli error) <https://github.com/silverstripe/silverstripe-framework/blob/9c59c42/src/ORM/Connect/MySQLiConnector.php#L213> 12. symfony/flex (try can't actually throw) <https://github.com/symfony/flex/blob/4a6d98e/src/PackageResolver.php#L88> My take here is that the language already handles the analogous cases (`continue`/`break`/`goto`/...etc) natively, so leaving `return` looks like an inconsistency. I lean toward deprecating it now with an eye to an error in a future major (following the steps of Tim's deprecate-return-from-constructor RFC <https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecate-return-value-from-construct>)...though I guess a plain warning would be fine too. The main thing is that it seems worth doing something about. Is there appetite for this? Thanks, Osama
