PHP RFC: !instanceof syntax

• Proposed Version: PHP 8.2
• Date: 2021-12-17
• Author: Oliver Nybroe, olivernybroe@gmail.com
• Status: Draft (or Under Discussion or Accepted or Declined)

The elevator pitch for the RFC. The first paragraph of this section will be slightly larger to give it emphasis; please write a good introduction.

All the features and examples of the proposal.

To paraphrase Zeev Suraski, explain hows the proposal brings substantial value to be considered for inclusion in one of the world's most popular programming languages.

Remember that the RFC contents should be easily reusable in the PHP Documentation.

If applicable, you may wish to use the language specification as a reference.

What breaks, and what is the justification for it?

List the proposed PHP versions that the feature will be included in. Use relative versions such as “next PHP 8.x” or “next PHP 8.x.y”.

Make sure there are no open issues when the vote starts!

List existing areas/features of PHP that will not be changed by the RFC.

This helps avoid any ambiguity, shows that you have thought deeply about the RFC's impact, and helps reduces mail list noise.

This section details areas where the feature might be improved in future, but that are not currently proposed in this RFC.

A future scope of the RFC could be to remove the previously possible way of checking not instance of. So instead of !$object instanceof MyClass being equal to $object !instanceof MyClass it would now be interpreted as the following code (!$object) instanceof MyClass

Include these so readers know where you are heading and can discuss the proposed voting options.

Links to any external patches and tests go here.

If there is no patch, make it clear who will create a patch, or whether a volunteer to help with implementation is needed.

Make it clear if the patch is intended to be the final patch, or is just a prototype.

For changes affecting the core language, you should also provide a patch for the language specification.

After the project is implemented, this section should contain

1. the version(s) it was merged into
2. a link to the git commit(s)
3. a link to the PHP manual entry for the feature
4. a link to the language specification section (if any)

Links to external references, discussions or RFCs

Keep this updated with features that were discussed on the mail lists.