On 01 Dec 2010, at 14:10, presid...@basnetworks.net wrote: > Unfortunately I find that to be one of the major downfalls of PHP. It > sometimes disregards defacto standards that are set across the entire > industry, which causes a lot of frustration for new programmers. > Sometimes the functionality PHP adds by going its own way is worth it, but > often it is just a confusing mess. Thats just my opinion though, YMMV. Still, if it is not consistent in itself it is worse than not following certain designs which make sense for other languages only.
>>> isset() in the way you suggest would just be confusing. It would allow >>> is >>> to say that a property does not exist, when in fact it does exist. This >>> is not logical. >> From the docu: isset — Determine if a variable is set and is not NULL >> There is nothing confusing about isset($this->Hours) == FALSE in your >> example if isset($this->seconds) == FALSE. > > Right, I understand how it would work, and the reasons why it would "make > sense", but it just feels wrong to me. When you unset() a variable in a > class, that whole variable is gone. Its not just hiding somewhere, its > completely gone. If a property were to "pretend" it is not set, with an > isset method, it would still be there - just hiding. That is why it does > not make sense to me. The main problem here is that unset and isset are not symmetric. isset() basically means there is a value. Where unset() destroys the _holder_ of the value. In that sense, unset is special since it works on another level, on the same level as property_exists(). There are several possible approaches, but the main point here is that at least isset() still makes sense. property_exists() and unset() should be dealt with carefully in another way. Best regards Stefan -- Stefan Marr Software Languages Lab Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium http://soft.vub.ac.be/~smarr Phone: +32 2 629 2974 Fax: +32 2 629 3525 -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
