All of these syntaxes are useful. Some more than others. a()[$x] is probably more useful than a()(). I could do without the latter, but both have irked me a few times.

(3) is implemented by C#, and Microsoft thought about it a lot. Same re: (4). Almost every language except PHP has a short array grammar.

I’ve implemented IN as:

function EQ()
{
$args = func_get_args();
return Utils::inArray($args[0], array_slice($args, 1));
}

The same could be done for between. Functions sometimes can make up for a lack of an operator. Sure it’s prefix notation, but whatever

function EQ() {
$args = func_get_args();
return in_array($args[0], array_slice($args, 1));
}

if EQ($value, 1, 2, 3) { // do stuff if it’s 1 or 2 or 3 }

Done.

Something I’d really like:

$blog_posts = new blogManager()->getPosts();

This would spare a lot of temporary variables, and avoid a couple of unnecessary Singletons.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by SamHennessy: What or need the #PHP source code used in Zend Server? Find them at http://digs.by/cWx thanks Stat…

You can just use the __get() and __set() magic methods to implement this. Just put your ’secured’ properties in an array set to be a private property.

class Example {
   private $properties;

   public function __get($name){
        if(//some logic ){
             return $this->properties[$name];
        }
        trigger_error('access denied',E_USER_FATAL);
        return;
   }
}

$ex = new Example();
$var = $ex->foo;
//if your property isn't accessible you'll get a fatal error

You can do the same thing with method calls using __call()

Usage example

class Example {
   secured $foo;
   secured $bar;
   public function __isPermitted($name,$arguments,$caller){
        if(//some logic ){
             return true;
        }
        return false;
   }
}

$ex = new Example();
$var = $ex->foo;

//if isPermitted returns false
FATAL_ERROR: access denied