About using "int" as return type for getId(): > * Can the `getId()` return type be restricted to either `int` or > > `string`? Why is it a union type right now? Technical limitation? > > To allow changes in the future. The real return value here is an int, but > the size increase due to hashing makes it a string. If we find a way to > avoid that (or decided that we don't care about leaking addresses), we > could change this to a (faster) int-based API. >
spl_object_hash() uses a XOR to hide internal addresses - so they're already "leaking". we also added spl_object_id() which proved much better in term of memory usage - not only CPU. Mixing both arguments/approaches, what about returning a XORed int? Are we OK with that? It'd be a welcome storage/CPU optimization from my pov.
