Hello Php Internals, I was wondering today why did we not have (yet ?) a Collection type in Php ? Typically what would be that kind of variable type ?
This type would be a great intermediate between an array and an Object. Today, in my opinion we are seeing to much wrong uses of php Object. To quote one of the most used: The Doctrine Collection object. These kind of object are IMO very memory-greedy ones. The implementation idea would be to have a new variable type: The Collection. The Collection is Iterable, Traversable, Countable like an array to be compatible with foreach and other Traversable-compatibles functions. The Collection become a type on it's own, so there's a lot of changes to be considered: - The serialization - The vardumping/exporting - The Exception traces - The backtrace To be syntaxely compliant to array and object it would be case insensitive even if i would like to prefer it Camelcased: Collection. This is up to you. The target is Php 8, but the reserved word could be introduced in php 7.3. Here's are very basics implementation concepts: /** * Standard var declaration */ $collection = Collection(int); /** * Alternative var declaration */ $collection = Collection(int, [1, 2, 3]); // Throws nothing $collection[]= 10; $collection['abc']= 10; // Throws CollectionTypeHintError $collection = Collection(int, [1, '2', 3]); $collection['abc']= '10'; $collection['abc']= new StdClass; // Transtypes the collection to an standard array $collectionAry = (array) $collection; // Throws CollectionTypeReHintingError $collection = (array) $collection; $collection = 10; // Throws nothing unset($collection); $collection = 10; Now the +/-; The +: + We have an optimized Collection type instead of those ugly Object-like collections that are ressources-greedy. + Aside of the optimization, we have a well understandable type hint reserved to the Collections. This is clearly a better semantically-appropriated way to work with Collection data. The -: - Collection become a reserved word. Therefore, this could introduce a major BC. Cheers, Georges.L
