Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Pipe Assignment Operator

On 16.07.26 04:07, Larry Garfield wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 9, 2026, at 11:45 PM, Caleb White wrote:
>> Hi internals,
>>
>> I'd like to open discussion on my (first!) RFC for the pipe assignment
>> operator (|>=):
>> https://wiki.php.net/rfc/pipe_assignment_operator
>>
>> It adds a compound assignment form of the pipe operator, so that
>> $x |>= callable is shorthand for $x = $x |> callable, with
>> support for chaining. Implementation with tests is at:
>> https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/22633
>>
>> Looking forward to your feedback.
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Caleb
> Perhaps weirdly, I am not a huge fan of this RFC.  I'm open to pipe-compound operators (the other that's been suggested is a null-safe ?|>, which I'd support), but I'm not sure of the use case for this one.
>
> That may be because, from a functional programming point of view, piping a back to itself makes little if any sense.  Values should be immutable, so you would be doing
>
> $b = $a |> foo(...) |> bar(...) |> baz(...);
>
> I cannot think of a case where I would want to put $a on the left side, too.  How realistic is this use case?
>
> I don't think this RFC would cause any harm, I suppose, so I probably won't vote against it.  But at the moment I don't see a compelling reason to vote for it.  A concrete real-world use case would help make that case, because I cannot come up with one myself.
>
> --Larry Garfield

Hey Larry,

// before
public function makeSlug(string $value): string {
     $value = $value |> mb_strtolower(...); // ...
     $number = $this->getNextSlugNumber($value); // checks DB
     if (0 < $number) {  $value .= "-$number";  }
     return $value;
}

// after
public function makeSlug(string $value): string {
     $value |>= mb_strtolower(...) ; // ...
     $number = $this->getNextSlugNumber($value); // checks DB
     if (0 < $number) {  $value .= "-$number"; }
     return $value;
}


Currently we have to make assignment gymnastics even for use cases that 
do not require an immutable second value. Would argue many people in PHP 
do and will use pipes for readability, not because they suddenly write 
PHP from a functional programming point of view. This is a good 
proposal, IMO.

--

Cheers
Nick