====== Request for Comments: count_elements Vs. count() ======
  * Version: 1.0
  * Date: 2008-06-25
  * Author: Etienne Kneuss <colder@php.net>
  * Status: Implemented


===== Introduction =====

An internal class has two ways to achieve a special feature:

   - implement the interface and define the method
   - define the handler

for a class to be userland-friendly AND fast it must:

   - define a zend_function pointer in the object for a specific method
   - when creating the object, check if the method is overriden, if so, assign that pointer to the child method
   - define a handler that will check that pointer, if defined: call it, if not, proceed without any method call

===== Proposal and Patch =====

There are one problem with how the count_elements handler is defined/used: if an internal class extends Countable, it will call its count() method regardless of the handler pointer.

There are two main reasons why it's a problem:
   - while it's userland friendly, it doesn't give the possibility of internals class to spare a method call if the method is not overriden.
   - it's not consistent with other handlers

The patch consists of changing the order of the checks to fix that problem:

http://patches.colder.ch/php-src/array-1.308.2.21.2.37.2.34.patch?markup
http://patches.colder.ch/php-src/array-1.454.patch?markup

===== Possible Breaks =====

Internal classes that define a count_elements handler will have to be fixed.

===== Changelog =====