PHP RFC: Normalize string bitwise shifts

• Version: 0.1
• Date: 2014-04-15
• Author: Chris Wright, daverandom@php.net
• Status: Draft
• First Published at: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/string-bitwise-shifts

This RFC proposes that the behaviour of bitwise shift operations on strings be altered to match the behaviour of bitwise shifts on integers.

TODO

Existing code that relies on the current behaviour will no longer produce the originally expected result. This can be easily resolved by explicitly casting the left operand to an integer.

As this is a backwards-incompatible change, this RFC targets PHP 6.

Should right shifts shift copies of the left-most bits on, or always shift cleared bits?

Only bitwise shifts in user land where the left operand is a string are affected.

Yes or no.

A WIP patch can be seen on Github.

Original internals thread

None so far.