Robert Stoll wrote:
Nevertheless, the signature in the documentation implies that
date_create() returns always DateTime. I already submitted a patch to
change it to mixed :)
IMHO, the signature is fine, as false is returned only in *exceptional*
cases. To be strict, changing the return type to mixed had to be done
for (nearly) *all* functions, because several may return false in error
cases, and many will return null when wrong arguments are passed.
I see your point. But IMO it is confusing that something else is returned than mentioned in the signature. I always take
strpos as a reference (it has mixed as return type). Yet, mixed is not really precise and I think it would be better to
have something like "int|false" or a shorter form, maybe "int!" to indicate that either int or false is returned.
Changing strpos to int would be wrong IMO. I want to see at one glance from the signature of the function what it
returns. As I said mixed is not ideal either since I have to scroll down to 'Return Values' but better than confusing
me.
I try as much as possible to list the various return options in the docblock
function header which is fine where I'm working with everything via an IDE which
simply uses it as a type hint. This goes back to PHP4 days and still works
perfectly well without needing anything more complex. Tweaking the formal help
to match that works for me.
About null, I see null as part of an object type. I know that many people would not agree on this one but for me it
makes sense.
Data returned from databases uses 'null' for the specific instance of 'not set'
and while you could wrap every data field into an object, simply replacing a
value with 'null' in a results array is totally logical. Binary has two values -
'yes', 'no' and 'I don't know' :)
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