PHP RFC: declare(function_and_const_lookup='global')

• Version: 0.9.1
• Date: 2020-01-28
• Author: Tyson Andre tandre@php.net
• Status: Declined
• First Published at: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/use_global_elements

When calling a function or using a constant that isn't fully qualified from a namespace (other than the global namespace), PHP will check these two locations in order:

1. The current namespace.
2. The global namespace. (if not found in the current namespace)

This leads to the following problems:

1. A minor decrease in performance, due to not being able to use specialized opcodes (and other optimizations) for functions such as strlen due to the ambiguity, not being able to evaluate the values of constants,
   and due to usually needing to check the current namespace before finding a function/constant in the global namespace at runtime.
   
   For example, version_compare(PHP_VERSION, '7.0.0', '>=') can't be converted to a constant by opcache in a namespace,
   but \version_compare(\PHP_VERSION, '7.0.0', '>=') can.
2. Developers having to deal with ambiguity of which function is being called, if a project has or uses namespaced functions.

In order to eliminate the ambiguity, there are currently several options, which have different drawbacks:

1. Add multiple use function function_name and use const MY_CONST at the top of the namespace.
   This is prone to merge conflicts when functions start/stop being used, inconvenient to keep up to date, and the vast majority of these will be global functions and constants.
2. Write functions as \function_name() and constants as \MY_CONST.
   • This is more verbose, and inconvenient if the only types of constants/functions used are global.
   • Some builtins such as __DIR__ and empty() aren't actually constants/functions, and they can't be prefixed by backslashes.
   • Version control history for lines would change if MY_CONST was replaced with \MY_CONST
   • New contributors to a project would often be unfamiliar with any applicable coding style guidelines of fully qualifying function/const uses.
3. Avoid using namespaces (this is forbidden by PSR-1)
4. Mixes of the above approaches.

This RFC proposes a new language feature which avoids those drawbacks.

Support declare(function_and_const_lookup = 'global') as the first statement of a PHP file (the same place as strict_types). This directive can be used in combination with function/global uses.

<?php
 
declare(
    strict_types=1,
    function_and_const_lookup='global'
);
 
namespace MyNS;
 
use function OtherNS\my_function;
use const OtherNS\OTHER_CONST;
 
// The below function and constant references now unambiguously refer to the global namespace.
//
// Without "declare(function_and_const_lookup='global') ...",
// php would have checked for MyNS\version_compare
// and MyNS\PHP_VERSION at runtime before checking the global namespace.
if (version_compare(PHP_VERSION, '8.0.5') >= 0) {
    // ...
}

declare(function_and_const_lookup='global') can be thought of behaving the same way as if every possible function name and constant name was used from the global namespace (for names without use elsewhere).

Note that declaring a function or constant within a file does not add a use.

Instead, unless the namespace is the global namespace, it is a compilation error to declare a function or constant without adding use function MyNS\my_function; or use const MyNS\MY_CONST; in an above statement of the namespace block.

This keeps the name lookup rules easy to understand, and avoids adding unpredictable edge cases (the other possibility of automatically adding uses would cause surprises if functions were reordered, or moved to a different file, or declared within if/else statements.)

declare(function_and_const_lookup='global');
 
namespace MyNS;
 
// Outside the global namespace, without 'use function MyNS\sprintf',
// declaring a function is a compile error when function_and_const_lookup='global'.
// PHP already only warns about the name already
// being in use if the namespace being referred to is different.
// It does not emit notices, warnings, or errors if the namespace is the same.
use function MyNS\factorial;
use function MyNS\sprintf;
// Outside the global namespace, without 'use const MyNS\MY_CONST',
// declaring a constant is a compile error when function_and_const_lookup='global'.
// PHP already only warns about the name already
// being in use if the namespace being referred to is different.
// It does not emit notices, warnings, or errors if the namespace is the same.
use const MyNS\MY_PREFIX;
 
const MY_PREFIX = 'Prefix';
 
function sprintf($msg, ...$args) {
    // this forces the implementer to explicitly refer to sprintf from the global namespace.
    return \sprintf(MY_PREFIX . " $msg", ...$args);
}
 
function factorial(int $n) {
    return $n > 1 ? factorial($n - 1) * $n : 1;
}

There is a working implementation at https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/4951

function_and_const_lookup has two possible values: 'global' and 'default' (these are case sensitive). 'default' is the same as omitting the setting. The setting 'default' is added to provide a way to explicitly indicate the default behavior is deliberately chosen for a file, as well as to support any future language changes such as https://wiki.php.net/rfc/namespace_scoped_declares

The error handling (for the first voting options) can be thought of being the same as if every possible function name and constant name was used from the global namespace (for names not used elsewhere).

• Declaring a function or constant in a file with function_and_const_lookup='global' is allowed without notices or errors.
  define() is not affected.
  
  This RFC does not propose triggering notices or errors, because forbidding declaring functions or constants may cause problems with future work such as https://wiki.php.net/rfc/namespace_scoped_declares , and would prevent using this directive in all files.
• A warning is emitted if declare(function_and_const_lookup='global') and use <element_type> global_element_name are both used, due to the latter being redundant when referring to the global namespace.
• declare(function_and_const_lookup='global') does not cause notices if the any of the below namespaces are the global namespace.

This version of the RFC has no backwards incompatible changes. The behavior of existing code is unchanged.

8.0

Voting started 2020-01-28 and ends 2020-02-11.

The overall change requires a 2/3 majority.

Support declare(function_and_const_lookup=...)
Real name	Yes	No
alcaeus (alcaeus)
alec (alec)
asgrim (asgrim)
ashnazg (ashnazg)
bwoebi (bwoebi)
carusogabriel (carusogabriel)
colinodell (colinodell)
derick (derick)
duncan3dc (duncan3dc)
galvao (galvao)
girgias (girgias)
googleguy (googleguy)
jhdxr (jhdxr)
kalle (kalle)
kguest (kguest)
kinncj (kinncj)
kriscraig (kriscraig)
lbarnaud (lbarnaud)
levim (levim)
marandall (marandall)
mbeccati (mbeccati)
mcmic (mcmic)
mike (mike)
narf (narf)
ocramius (ocramius)
pmjones (pmjones)
pollita (pollita)
ruudboon (ruudboon)
salathe (salathe)
santiagolizardo (santiagolizardo)
sebastian (sebastian)
stas (stas)
svpernova09 (svpernova09)
tandre (tandre)
yunosh (yunosh)
zeev (zeev)
zimt (zimt)
Final result:	2	35
This poll has been closed.

Secondary vote: When declare(function_and_const_lookup='global') and use <element_type> global_element_name; are both used in a namespace block, due to the latter being redundant when referring to the global namespace, php will do the following when the file is required:

1. Emit a warning (as described in the RFC)
2. Trigger a fatal Error
3. Allow it and don't warn

If “Allow it and don't warn” has over 50% of the votes, that option wins.

Otherwise, the option of “Warning” or “Fatal Error” with the most votes wins.

Severity of redundant uses of global functions/constants
Real name	Warning	Fatal Error	Allow and don't warn
alcaeus (alcaeus)
alec (alec)
ashnazg (ashnazg)
bwoebi (bwoebi)
derick (derick)
duncan3dc (duncan3dc)
galvao (galvao)
kguest (kguest)
kinncj (kinncj)
kriscraig (kriscraig)
levim (levim)
mcmic (mcmic)
ocramius (ocramius)
pollita (pollita)
reywob (reywob)
ruudboon (ruudboon)
sergey (sergey)
stas (stas)
svpernova09 (svpernova09)
tandre (tandre)
zimt (zimt)
Final result:	4	10	7
This poll has been closed.

https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/4951 implements this RFC

From https://externals.io/message/107877#107883

That [use global functions] still doesn't really explain what's happening, because in code that doesn't use any namespaced functions, the line has no user-visible effect at all - functions are always used from the global namespace. What it actually does is switch off a language feature, so perhaps it should be something more like:

declare(lookup_functions_in_current_namespace=false);

That would also mean that it can be covered by any future way of setting language directives, such as settings per “module”, bundling into “editions”, etc.

From https://externals.io/message/107877#107894

1. strict_types is not the first or only declare directive. Declaring an encoding fundamentally changes the meaning of a source file; probably it would be invalid in a different encoding, but errors are not the primary purpose of the directive. Declaring a value of “ticks” actually changes the runtime behavior of the code. The manual defines declare vaguely as “used to set execution directives”, so it's not particularly clear to me that changing namespace resolution would be outside of its purpose.
2. The existing fallback to global scope means that looking at the use statements of a file is not sufficient to resolve the ambiguity of an unprefixed function name. Indeed, the same line of code can execute two different functions within a running program if the namespaced function is defined at the right time.

From https://externals.io/message/107877#107894

I'm generally not convinced that beginning the special directive with the word “use” automatically makes it easier to find or understand. Given some code mentioning “strpos”, you wouldn't be able to scan the list of use statements for the word “strpos”, you'd have to understand that there are two modes of execution, and look for a line that switches between those modes.

From https://externals.io/message/107953#108132

First and foremost, if we ever implement https://wiki.php.net/rfc/namespace_scoped_declares or some similar way of specifying declares on the package level, and I think it's pretty likely that we're going to do this in one form or another, then we're very much going to regret not making this a declare. Disabling the namespace fallback, just like the use of strict types, is something you will usually want to do for an entire library/project, not just for individual files. Going for something like “use global functions” preemptively precludes this for no good reason.

• This is similar to the use function ...; syntax. Both use global functions and declare(...) make it clear that this syntax can be used only for the global namespace.
• use global functions; can be placed immediately adjacent to other use function ...; statements, so only one block of code needs to be checked for function/constant resolution behavior (if coding style guidelines are enforced).
• This can be set per each namespace block, in the uncommon case of files that combine blocks from multiple namespaces. This makes it possible for a file to use this in some namespace blocks, but also declare functions/constants in different namespace blocks. (The latest RFC version allows declaring functions/constants with declare(function_and_const_lookup='global'), so this argument no longer applies)

(The first versions of this RFC used the syntax use global functions; and use global consts)

An argument against the separate statements for functions and constants is that these two directives would almost always be combined, so it would make to use a combination of these.

An earlier RFC https://wiki.php.net/rfc/fallback-to-root-scope-deprecation had the following notable objections, and I'm not sure of the current status of that RFC:

• Deprecating the behavior of existing code would break (possibly unmaintained) third-party libraries and require a lot of code changes, discouraging updates to the latest version of PHP.
  
  use global functions; wouldn't.
• Some mocking libraries will declare functions in namespaces being tested, with the same name as the global function.
  My proposal has similar drawbacks - third party code that started using “use function *” would break those libraries (but so would manually adding the same namespace uses).
  
  But there are alternatives to those libraries, such as uopz, runkit7, and SoftMocks (SoftMocks changes the class autoloader to replace code with instrumented code).

Any work on that RFC can be done independently of this RFC.

i.e. for functions, constants, and class names.

e.g. declare(global_lookup=1) or declare(name_lookup='global')

https://externals.io/message/107953#108250

One option that I haven't seen much discussion on is the opposite: Always only look in the global namespace. Any unimported unqualified usages will be treated as fully qualified names. This would match the proposed semantics for functions/consts and change the resolution rules for classes. I think this would have relatively little impact on how code is written, as classes already tend to make extensive use of cross-namespace references and the import is usually IDE managed.

...

It's fairly common for NS\SubNS\ClassName to mention other classes from NS\SubNS\OtherClassName right now,
(more commonly than use Exception, use Throwable, etc in some cases),

Out of interest, I checked how the symbol reference distribution in open-source projects look like. These numbers are for unique class name references inside namespaces:

Global: int(88398) Same namespace: int(83790) Other namespace: int(315455)

So, most references are to classes outside the current namespace. The number of references to global classes and classes in the same namespace is actually pretty similar, there are 5% more global references.

From that perspective, changing the name resolution rules to always look for the global symbol if unimported would actually slightly reduce the number of necessary “use” statements.

It's fairly common for NS\SubNS\ClassName to mention other classes from NS\SubNS\OtherClassName right now,
(more commonly than use Exception, use Throwable, etc in some cases),
and [opting into that a single setting such as declare(global_lookup=1)]
would require changing a lot of third party code [to get unambiguous function and constant resolution easily].
A separate option such as `declare(lookup_classes=global)` would allow migrating to that,
but would confuse developers switching between codebases using different settings of lookup_classes,
and introduce similar confusion about the rare case of multiple classes in one file.

If we were to make such a change (hypothetically), the way I would view it is “use new name resolution rules” or not, rather than a collection of fine-grained options. Notably Rust made a major change to how symbols are resolved in the 2018 edition, so such things aren't inconceivable, especially with the right tooling.

https://externals.io/message/107953#108251

If “use new name resolution rules” was the only option, the larger amount of refactoring for class references (and doc comments) might discourage using the new name resolution for functions/constants, and make backporting patches to previous major versions of applications/libraries more error prone (e.g. \MyNS\Exception vs \Exception). The refactoring might also be perceived as risky.

Arguments for:

• Classes don't have the ambiguity functions and constants do, and already have autoloaders, so we should encourage the use of classes instead.
• Can potentially support use function Ns\SomeClass::some_method;, use const Ns\SomeClass::SOME_CLASS_CONST instead

Arguments against:

• PHP will still need to support existing php modules and userland libraries/polyfills that use global functions/constants.

(i.e. for unqualified my_function(), do the opposite of this: work on approaches to only check \NS\my_function() without checking \my_function() to avoid ambiguity.)

This was suggested in combination with other strategies. See the section “Use module/library systems instead”.

Right now, the majority of PHP's functions are in the global namespace. (count(), strlen(), is_string(), etc.)

We might eventually benefit from versioned “libraries” of functions that can be imported in one command which would solve many-a-future-problem by itself.

I'd be in favor of a module system, I just can't think of a good way to migrate to that with existing use cases and limitations. I'd imagine there would be various obstacles/objections to getting an RFC for that approach accepted. (continuing to support polyfills and autoloading; increasing ambiguity instead of decreasing ambiguity; any implementations I can think of would have worse performance with opcache)

If it is implemented in a way causing large backwards compatibility breaks, it may discourage upgrading.

See https://externals.io/message/107953#107962 for more details.

It is in most cases. Counterarguments:

• Making it easier to avoid ambiguity has benefits elsewhere - for analyzing code, future work on autoloading, helping developers avoid unexpected behavior in edge cases in applications, etc.
• It's much larger in some cases than others due to other opcache optimizations, frequency of calling a line of code, etc. Benchmarking and interpreting performance of applications after new features get added may take more developer time than ensuring files contain declare(function_and_const_lookup='global');
• -Developers may still aim to avoid ambiguity without this RFC, resulting in more verbose code.

Background: 3 declare options exist at the time of writing: encoding=“UTF-8”, ticks=500, and strict_types=1. See https://www.php.net/manual/en/control-structures.declare.php

Arguments for a string literal: Another setting, encoding=“UTF-8” is quoted, and every declare directive currently only allows scalar values. Making the value for function_and_const_lookup a string literal would keep the syntax simple, consistent and unchanged.

Arguments for a keyword: Keys aren't quoted, there are only two possible values for function_and_const_lookup, and encoding needs to be quoted because of the hyphen. A keyword is also shorter.

https://externals.io/message/107953#108268

As a minor note, rather than using 'default' as one of the values, I think
it would be better to use 'fallback' to make it robust against a potential
future change of defaults.

I'd rather have that done when the future change of defaults is being proposed. Supporting 'fallback' might cause confusion and extra work if the name resolution defaults ever change in a different way. At the point where they do change, we either do or don't want a way to support the old 'fallback', but we will want to support the new 'default'.

I'd imagine that if there were significant changes, they would go in the next major version, and PHP 8.X.0 would add the new 'fallback' option and possibly emit deprecation notices about the 'default' option or the absence of an option. So done that way, you could run the same code both on PHP 8 and PHP 9. I'd be annoyed if 8.X.0 didn't make it that easy.

I don't plan to change the default name resolution behavior in PHP 9, though, and if it does change, it might even be according to a different proposal, so adding 'fallback' as a third option before we know what type of change is planned seems premature.

Initial proposal

[RFC] "use global functions/consts" statement

[VOTE] declare(function_and_const_lookup='global')