Re: [SMARTY-DEV] RE: [SMARTY] php5 Iterators.

[ps - im not on the smarty dev list please reply direct, thanks]

George Miroshnikov wrote:
> Hello David,
> 
> What about using instanceof operator?

In order to support Iterator objects they also need to implement 
Countable (or atleast a count() method?) - because the code does

count( $var ) as well as
foreach( $var )

and an Iterator object does not work with the std. count() function 
unless it implements Countable (which I don't have in the version of php 
I'm running - I have defined an replacement Interface which stipulates a 
count() method which my iterator objects use.)

> It would raise parser error on php4, but my thought is all php5 code
> could be (temporarily?) moved into separate plugin that will be
> conditionally included if Smarty is being run on php5 box.
> Or maybe use runtime functions to avoid parser error.

on a side note: Are there any ideas regarding an eventual break from 
php4? that is to say a point in time where the new functionality of php5
becomes stable/wellknown enough and the install base wide enough that it 
is decided to no longer support php4 in active development (Looking at 
the smarty source code - its just begging to have a stack of 
functions/vars declared private for instance, in the sense that the CS 
is very clear as to the intended scope of functions/vars etc :-)

> 
> I'm wondering, if is_a() is forward-compatible with interfaces?

don't know that but judging by the fact that there is get_classes() and 
class_implements() I doub't that should be relied on. semantically it 
would be incorrect also: if you implement a steeringwheel does that make 
you one?

> 
> Monday, January 17, 2005, 10:45:01 PM, you wrote:
> 
> DZ> Jochem,
> 
> DZ> Someone posted a patch for this "problem" a couple of days ago on the
> DZ> Developers list (this is where this discussion belongs to anyway, so I'm
> DZ> crossposting there).

with regard to the patch, no worries - I have patched mine own install - 
  twas easy to 'fix' - I'll ( try to :-) ) maintain a copy in my 
projects cvs and just merge the updates now and again..

rgds,
Jochem

> 
> DZ> I totally agree with you, we need the possibility to use iterators. The
> DZ> point is we need to find a clean way to implement this without breaking BC.
> DZ> If we just do an is_object() check, we will break BC because you actually
> DZ> CAN loop over objects using foreach, it will return the property values (and
> DZ> their names as keys). We cannot remove the array casting either because some
> DZ> people might rely on the fact that their int, string, whatever gets
> DZ> converted to a one-value array and they can loop over them.
> 
>