use method aliasing/importing

[staabm]

Description

use of static methods can get pretty bulky and leads to pretty long expressions, see

class HtmlHelper {
    public static function escape_htmlspecial(string $string): string
    {
       return htmlspecialchars($string, \ENT_QUOTES, ENCODING_CHARSET, false);
    }
}
?>
<div class="page-heading">
    <h2><?php echo HtmlHelper::escape_htmlspecial($someString); ?></h2>
</div>

(html and php code would obvisouly be separated in 2 files.. putting them together for demonstration purposes)

static method have the benefit of beeing autoloaded though.

---

I could use namespaced functions instead:

namespace HtmlHelper {
    function escape_htmlspecial(string $string): string
    {
       return htmlspecialchars($string, \ENT_QUOTES, ENCODING_CHARSET, false);
    }
}

use function HtmlHelper\escape_htmlspecial as html_esc;
?>
<div class="page-heading">
    <h2><?php echo html_esc($someString); ?></h2>
</div>

(html and php code would obvisouly be separated in 2 files.. putting them together for demonstration purposes)

that way I can use function and optionally import aliases to shrink it even further.
this has the problem that I no longer can rely on native autoloading though.
its easier to read

---

I am thinking whether it would be possible to combine the benefits of the 2 approaches

Proposal:

class HtmlHelper {
    public static function escape_htmlspecial(string $string): string
    {
       return htmlspecialchars($string, \ENT_QUOTES, ENCODING_CHARSET, false);
    }
}

use function HtmlHelper::escape_htmlspecial as html_esc;

?>
<div class="page-heading">
    <h2><?php echo html_esc($someString); ?></h2>
</div>

-> new use function syntax (to be discussed)
-> for static methods only
-> autoloading of the HtmlHelper class
-> readability of the function imported aliases (import alias only optional)

wdyt?

[nielsdos]

This reminds me of import static from Java. I guess it could make sense for PHP too.
This is likely not hard to implement, but there are a few questions around edge cases that need to be solved:

• How to handle name clashes with a local function of the same name as an alias
• Should the alias be usable as a string-based callable?

Anyway, since this is a language change this requires an RFC.

[jorgsowa]

Wouldn't the function autoloading resolve this problem?

https://wiki.php.net/rfc/core-autoloading

[mvorisek]

If implemented like use function HtmlHelper::escape_htmlspecial as html_esc;, ie. use function with :: support, then the answers for the questions are:

* How to handle name clashes with a local function of the same name as an alias

as already supported - https://3v4l.org/0alOH

* Should the alias be usable as a string-based callable?

yes - https://3v4l.org/4lAUT

The possible downside is a small ambiguity when aliased import should be preferred over regular class import. IMO, within regular classes, never.