Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Deprecations for PHP 8.6

On 1-7-2026 23:35, Seifeddine Gmati wrote:
>> Sorry to butt in, but a) the minimum PHP for WP is PHP 7.4
> I got the 8.3 number from their official website:
> https://wordpress.org/about/requirements/ , even if the requirement is
> 7.1, the `[]` syntax works fine there. So, this is not a problem.

Please look again on the same page. The _recommended_ version may be PHP 
8.3, the minimum version ("Running on legacy versions?") is PHP 7.4 and 
only since recently.

>> * Code accessibility - it is much quicker to determine whether something is a list or an array when visually scanning code when the keywords are being used.
> `list(` does not mean a "list", PHP has no such type right now. It
> means you are destructuring an array, `list("foo" => $bar)` is valid.
> so "quicker to determine" is false, you can swap every `list(` usage
> with `array(` and the behavior will be exactly the same.

That's just plain untrue. The one is used for creating an array, the 
other for destructuring an array.

Swapping `list(` usages with `array(` will in most cases result in a 
parse error. Example: https://3v4l.org/O7O4q#veol

>
>> * Searchability of the code base - searching for `array(` or `list(` will yield useful results, searching for `[` will yield a hundred times more results, most of which are not what one is looking for (array access, assignments etc).
> Yes, it would also yield `$typed->array(`, `$posts->list(`, and more.
> If you are looking for a specific syntax, you should use AST based
> search tools, not grep text. In which case, you can easily grep for
> array construction using `[]` over writes/reads using array-access
> syntax. This has never been a problem in every other language that
> uses `[]` syntax.
Agreed, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that WP uses 
it as an argument against switching to the short syntax.

Smile,
Juliette