PHP RFC: Object Initializer

• Version: 1.0
• Date: 2019-09-03
• Author: Michał Brzuchalski brzuchal@php.net
• Status: Declined
• First Published at: http://wiki.php.net/rfc/object-initializer

PHP doesn't have a convenient literal syntax for creating an object and initializing properties. This makes creating objects and initializing their state quite laborious. Every time you have to:

1. Instantiate an object.
2. Assign each needed accessible properties with the value.
3. Pass created a fully initialized object.

In current PHP implementation with Typed Properties, it is possible to instantiate class which doesn't require nullability for all properties and when they're not initialized we finish with properties in an uninitialized state.

That's where object initializer optimization can benefit with single expression statement and it can be used to initialize any kind of object (including anonymous classes) ensuring all required properties are properly initialized, otherwise a RuntimeExpection is thrown.

The initializer block can use any properties and variables available in the containing scope, but one has to be wary of the fact that initializers are run after constructors.

Object initializers allow assigning values to any accessible properties of an object at creation time without having to invoke a constructor followed by lines of assignment statements. The object initializer syntax enables to specify arguments for a constructor or omit the arguments (and parentheses syntax).

<?php
 
class Customer
{
  public $id;
  public $name;
  private DateTimeImmutable $createdAt;
 
  public function __construct()
  {
    $this->createdAt = new DateTimeImmutable("now");
  }
}
 
class Car
{
  public int $yearOfProduction;
  public string $vin;
}

The following example shows how to use an object initializer with a Customer, Car and how to invoke the parameterless constructor.

<?php
 
$customer = new Customer {
  id = 123,
  name = "John Doe",
};
 
$car = new Car {
  yearOfProduction = 2019,
  vin = "1FTFW1CVXAFD54385",
};

Note! If in current scope there are constants with exactly the same name as property names used in the above example, they do not impact object initialization in any way. Property names used in Object Initializer block stay with no relation to constants names.

The following example is equivalent to the previous one.

<?php
 
$customer = new Customer();
$customer->id = 123;
$customer->name = "John Doe";
 
$car = new Car();
$car->yearOfProduction = 2019;
$car->vin = "1FTFW1CVXAFD54385";

The main difference is that object initializers allow creating a new object, with its assigned properties in a single expression. For eg. factory methods where normally a significant amount of argument has default values or simple Data Transfer Objects could benefit.

Note! Currently, language allows instantiating object and initializing only a subset of typed non-nullable properties without a default value. These rules apply to object initializer the same way, meaning the creation of properly initialized object state is in authors responsibility, cause object initializer is a simplification as mentioned before.

Using Object Initializer enforce that if a class is instantiated with the Object Initializer, at the end of the instantiation and properties initialization, all visible properties (depends on initialization scope) are initialized, otherwise, a RuntimeException is thrown. This helps to avoid bugs where a property is added to the class but forgot to be assigned it a value in all cases where the class is instantiated and initialized.

The object initializers syntax allows to create an instance, and after that, it assigns the newly created object, with its assigned properties, to the variable in the assignment.

<?php
 
$customer = new Customer {
  name = "John Doe",
}; // throws RuntimeException: Initialization of Customer class object failed due to missing required properties
 
$car = new Car {
  yearOfProduction = 2019,
}; // throws RuntimeException: Initialization of Car class object failed due to missing required properties

Due to the fact that initializer block purpose is a simplification of instantiating and initializing object properties, constructors are called before initialization takes apart. Constructors allow initializing default values (especially not scalar one properties like DateTime etc.) for read-only properties which are visible only in the class scope.

Due to the fact that objects in PHP simply have constructor directly declared in class definition or indirectly through the defaulting constructor, creating a class instance and initializing properties through initializer block will effect in invoking constructor and assign property values after instantiation.

Note! Object instantiation allows only constructors without required arguments to be used. Any class which requires passing arguments to constructor cannot be used in combination with object initializer.

<?php
 
class Customer
{
  public int $id;
  public string $name;
  private DateTimeImmutable $createdAt;
 
  public function __construct()
  {
    $this->createdAt = new DateTimeImmutable("now");
  }
}
 
$customer = new Customer {
  id = 123,
  name = "John Doe",
};

Note! Classes without constructor desired to mimick “structs” or “data classes” are almost completely viable through the class with typed properties which means they rather don't need a constructor declared directly in the definition of class.

Note! If a class needs validation upon to validate its invariants a proper validation logic needs to be called after initialization. To combine it with object initializer and keep the validation process encapsulated, instantiation and initialization of class state are possible in named constructor with validation invoke before the instance is being used.

Initializer block uses current lexical scope, which means all local variables, accessible properties and methods, global variables and functions are possible to use for initializing object properties inside the object initializer block.

Initializer block allows assigning values to properties accessible from the current class context. This means if used to initialize object properties from inside the same class like for eg. using named static constructor all standard visibility rules apply as it is just a simplification of object creation and assigning values statements.

The following example shows the correct behaviour of visibility rules.

<?php
 
class Customer
{
  private string $name = '';
  protected ?string $email = null;
 
  public static function create(string $name, ?string $email = null): self
  {
    return new self {
      name = $name, // assign private property within the same class
      email = $email, // assign protected property within the same class
    };
  }
}
$customer = Customer::create("John Doe", "john.doe@example.com");

Due to lacks of property accessors magic methods like set() are often used to keep invariants and restrict property values to valid ones. This leads potentially to more issues than benefit but at current implementation, language allows using them.

An object initializer is just a simplification of instantiating the object and initializing property values that's why all rules regarding assigning property values to apply.

Using an object initializer combined with magic set method call might be used if an additional validation is required.

<?php
 
class EmailAddress
{
  protected string $email;
  public ?string $name = null;
 
  public function __set(string $name, $value): void
  {
    if ($name !== "email") {
      return;
    }
    if (!filter_var($value, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
      throw new InvalidArgumentException("Invalid email address");
    }
    $this->email = $value;
  }
}
 
$email = new EmailAddress {
  email = "john.doe@example.org",
  name = "John Doe",
};

Initializer block stands instead of constructor arguments which means in case of anonymous classes that place is right before the class definition.

The following example shows how to use object initializer with anonymous classes.

<?php
 
$email = new class {
  email = "john.doe@example.org",
  name = "John Doe",
  birthDate = new DateTime('1970-01-01'),
} {
  public DateTime $birthDate;
};

As stated before all property rules apply inside initializer block, which means properties can be set even if they're not declared then initializer block creates dynamic properties and assign their value.

Dynamic properties can be set by their name or by a variable which holds the name of property.

The following example shows how to use object initializer with dynamic properties.

<?php
 
$baz = "baz";
$obj = new stdClass {
  foo = "bar",
  $baz = true,
};

This proposal changes the meaning of the above example which uses a curly brace to fetch array offset (which is already deprecated since PHP 7.4) which is very rare usage.

<?php
 
class Foo {} 
$foo = [123 => Foo::class];
new $foo {
  $var = 123
};

Both ReflectionClass and ReflectionObject get a new method newInstanceFields(array $fields): object.

<?php
 
$reflectionClass = new ReflectionClass(Customer::class);
$customer = $reflectionClass->newInstanceFields(['name' => 'Bert']);
// equivalent to
$customer = new Customer {name = 'Bert'};

Targets next PHP 8.x. Which is PHP 8.0

None.

None.

Would require opcache changes.

None.

The features discussed in the following are not part of this proposal.

In a future removal of a class name before initializer block could be considered as a simplification for creating new instances of stdClass with initializer block to keep it in a single expression.

<?php
 
echo json_encode(new stdClass { foo = "bar" }); // will output {"foo":"bar"}
echo json_encode(new { foo = "bar" }); // could be equivalent

In a future splat operator could be used to expand array with string keys as arguments with the key parameter names.

<?php
 
$data = [
  "email" => "john.doe@example.org",
  "name" => "John Doe",
];
$customer = new Customer { ...$data };

As this is a language change, a 2/3 majority is required.

The vote is a straight Yes/No vote for accepting the RFC.

Accept object initializer?
Real name	Yes	No
alcaeus (alcaeus)
ashnazg (ashnazg)
brzuchal (brzuchal)
bs (bs)
colinodell (colinodell)
duncan3dc (duncan3dc)
frozenfire (frozenfire)
galvao (galvao)
jasny (jasny)
jpauli (jpauli)
kelunik (kelunik)
kguest (kguest)
kinncj (kinncj)
klaussilveira (klaussilveira)
levim (levim)
malukenho (malukenho)
mariano (mariano)
mbeccati (mbeccati)
mike (mike)
ocramius (ocramius)
patrickallaert (patrickallaert)
pierrick (pierrick)
pmjones (pmjones)
reywob (reywob)
salathe (salathe)
sebastian (sebastian)
stas (stas)
svpernova09 (svpernova09)
zimt (zimt)
Final result:	3	26
This poll has been closed.

.

Choose between two tokens as an assign operator in object initializer block?
Real name	=	=>
alcaeus (alcaeus)
ashnazg (ashnazg)
brzuchal (brzuchal)
colinodell (colinodell)
derick (derick)
frozenfire (frozenfire)
galvao (galvao)
girgias (girgias)
kalle (kalle)
kguest (kguest)
kinncj (kinncj)
klaussilveira (klaussilveira)
malukenho (malukenho)
mariano (mariano)
ocramius (ocramius)
reywob (reywob)
salathe (salathe)
svpernova09 (svpernova09)
Final result:	16	2
This poll has been closed.

Not implemented.

A volunteer to help with implementation would be desirable.

Not implemented.

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