Table of Contents

PHP RFC: Kill Real

Introduction

This RFC is about killing the third and uncommon alias 'real' alias for float/doubles.

Proposal

This RFC proposes to remove the 'real' alias that exists for double and floats. PHP supports floating point decimals which always are represented as 'float' when you var_dump() it. However 2 aliases exists to compliment this, these are 'double' and 'real'.

The 'real' alias is often forgotten and very rarely used. An example is that the scalar type hinting available as of PHP 7.0.0, doesn't support 'real' (or 'double' too for the matter).

Backward Incompatible Changes

The '(real)' type cast and the alias function 'is_real()' will be removed.

Proposed PHP Version(s)

Proposed is to deprecate both the type cast and the alias in 7.1, making them emit an E_DEPRECATED notice and remove them in 7.2.

RFC Impact

To SAPIs

None

To Existing Extensions

None

To Opcache

None

Proposed Voting Choices

Proposed voting choices are:

* Remove in 7.1 * Deprecate in 7.1, remove in 7.2 * Keep them

Although this touches the language syntax due to the type cast, I believe this only would require a 50%+1 majority (please correct if this is wrong).

Patches and Tests

A patch will be created once the voting period is over.