These are things in PHP which make me sad

Post by wvenable » Fri, May 27, 2011, 6:51 PM UTC

jessedhillon wrote: post #94

jmathai wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't make sense unless you understand how PHP works - at which point you'd use ===.

> It doesn't make sense unless you understand how PHP works ... In other words: equality is not intuitive. Awesome! --- Let's take a look at "how PHP works": 0 == 08 // true! WTF, really? Well, let's just use the magical 'I-mean-actual-equality-not-some-other-kind-of-equality' operator: 0 === 08 // also true! (Sonofabitch/Facepalm) * Infinity Of all the areas of a language in which one could gain expertise in, I thin…

Post by wvenable » Fri, May 27, 2011, 6:52 PM UTC

Zak wrote: post #40

cag_ii wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the string is first converted to an integer. "==" makes the comparison after converting types (see: Type Juggling in the docs) where "===" requires that the types be the same in order to be equal. Kind of weird the first time you see it, but it's a language design choice and does make sense once you understand it.

I think the reason people object to this behavior, even when they do understand it is that it makes the obvious default (==) dangerous. It's especially dangerous in the hands of the sort of non-experts for whom it's intended to make life easier.

Post by fleitz » Fri, May 27, 2011, 6:55 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #60

pornel wrote: post #16

There's a lot of valid points there, but "#33 Cannot override private methods with a subclass" is the right behavior. That's exactly what private is for, and it's important to know that such names are non-colliding and you can rely on their implementation. Use protected for overridable methods. You shouldn't mock or directly test private methods in unit tests — they're not part of the interface!

public/protected/private is a dumb idea in dynamic languages. If you don't want someone calling your method, prefix it with an underscore and say "the results are undefined if you call methods that start with an underscore". Done. Easier to maintain, easier to test, less code to type in. Come to think of it... public/protected/private is a dumb idea in C++ and Java, too.

Post by jessedhillon » Fri, May 27, 2011, 7:06 PM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #111

jessedhillon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't make sense unless you understand how PHP works ... In other words: equality is not intuitive. Awesome! --- Let's take a look at "how PHP works": 0 == 08 // true! WTF, really? Well, let's just use the magical 'I-mean-actual-equality-not-some-other-kind-of-equality' operator: 0 === 08 // also true! (Sonofabitch/Facepalm) * Infinity Of all the areas of a language in which one could gain expertise in, I thin…

I've been programming in PHP for a long time and I've never ever accidentally used an octal anywhere. Does such a non-problem really need this much attention?

  $v = validated_integer($user_input); // the user input 08
  if($v == 0 || $v === 0) { // let's just be safe
    
    // the Wrong Thing happens
    
  }

Post by wvenable » Fri, May 27, 2011, 7:17 PM UTC

jessedhillon wrote: post #117

wvenable wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been programming in PHP for a long time and I've never ever accidentally used an octal anywhere. Does such a non-problem really need this much attention?

Perhaps you ask a user to enter the month of their CC expiration date, which is shown as 08/14 on their card. $v = validated_integer($user_input); // the user input 08 if($v == 0 || $v === 0) { // let's just be safe // the Wrong Thing happens } This is a contrived example, sure. But you've never checked to see if a user input the number 0? Or a non-zero, positive integer?

    $user_input = '08';
    $user_input = (integer)$user_input;
    if ($user_input == 8) echo 'Correct!';
    if ($user_input == 0) echo 'Incorrect!';