PHP Annoyances

Beatnik on 2005-01-22T12:25:44

So I've started reading in this bible of the dark side. After reading a few pages, I already felt the urge rising to make some mental notes.

There is a list() function (page 16)

Function names in PHP are case INsensitive, variable names are not (page 17)

Although semicolons are required at the end of a block, they are not at the end of a ?> section. (page 18)

PHP supports both the # type comment as both the C++ style // and the C style /* */. It also has this weird side effect on closing the # type comment on one line. You can do <?php $foo = 4; #Set foo ?> <?php echo $foo?> (page 19-21).

Apparently, $| is not a valid variable name. There goes perl compatibility ;) (page 22).

Defining constants is done in a very C like way... but not quite. define('FOO',5); (page 23)

The list of PHP core language keywords include words like endfor, $this, __sleep, endforeach, __wakeup, endif, old_function and switch. That last one is the worst of all... If I wanted switch, I would have used some perl module :) (page 23)

There are function aliasses. is_int() has is_integer(). (page 24)

An object with no functions or values is also considered false (page 27)

There is an array() function. (page 27)

There seems no way (at this part of the book) to distinguish the difference between a scalar and an array. They both use the $ sigil.(page 27)

sort() sorts the array by reference, not by value. (page 28)

There is more than one sort function. (page 28)

But...

Cool is that they have the foreach($foo as $bar => $list) { echo $bar; } which will be in Perl 6. (page 27)

I'm about one third through chapter two.. I predict some more annoyances pretty soon.

---

That's not all...

bart on 2005-01-22T14:01:23

Yes there are more annoyances. From the top of my head:

• Very inconsequent in naming the built-in functions. Sometimes, there's underscores between the word parts, sometimes they're just concatenated. There's no fixed rules for the word part orders. Sometimes, related/similar functions have vastly different names: strtolower(), strtoupper(), ucfirst(), ucwords(), mb_strtolower().
• Some keywords require parens, while others can do without: for example:

  echo "foo";

  works without problem, but you do need the parens in

  die("foo");

• and the well know age old "there's no variable scoping, apart from function level scoping" complaint. If only file-level scoping was supported, I'd already be a much happier man. Now, if you do

  foreach($array as $id) {
      ...
  }

  at the top level, your global $id will have been cluttered.

And there's zillions more...

There seems no way (at this part of the book) to distinguish the difference between a scalar and an array. They both use the $ sigil.(page 27)

You should think of it as the array and the array ref being equivalent. You cant have both a $foo and a @foo as both are the same variable: $foo.

In addition, treating a string as an array results in characters being picked out of the string, like Perl's substr. Well, almost:

$x = "foobar";
$x[3] = "XYZ";
echo $x;

prints "fooXar".

There is an array() function. (page 27)

Yes, and there's no "[ ... ]" shortcut, like in Javascript. (And in Perl.)

There is more than one sort function. (page 28)

Yes, and the array_multisort() is nothing short of a nightmare. The API is very difficult, every column is a separate array, and there's no way to have it sort on a variable number of columns. Just give me the unified and very powerful sort BLOCK LIST from Perl, any day.

Re:That's not all...

Beatnik on 2005-01-22T14:30:51

I'll probably get those all of those items on my next few chapters. Only made it to page 29 so far :)