has() vs tryFrom()

[iluuu1994]

Suggested by Nikita, has() itself is rarely useful. It will always be used in combination with from() so we might as well offer tryFrom() to make these cases shorter.

[iluuu1994]

Additional plus: Static analyzers will understand that tryFrom() doesn't throw an exception while has() ? from() : null would require additional logic to understand.

[Crell]

As discussed in slack, my primary concern with from()/tryFrom() is that we'd be stealth-introducing a naming convention of "tryX() means it may return null". I am highly wary of that without further consideration because the implications could be large.

(Not necessarily bad, but large.)

[TysonAndre]

There's also the option of getOrDefault(string $name, $default = null), but both would definitely be different naming conventions. I don't have a strong preference.

Additional plus: Static analyzers will understand that tryFrom() doesn't throw an exception while has() ? from() : null would require additional logic to understand.

I agree it's definitely easier.

They'd have to get it from an external repo such as https://github.com/JetBrains/phpstorm-stubs/blob/master/Reflection/ReflectionClass.php (or extract it) because getDocComment() is almost always null for internal classes, methods, etc.

• in comparison, https://www.php.net/manual/en/reflectionclass.getproperty.php does not reference ReflectionException anywhere

Phan and Psalm check for user-defined methods but not for internal methods (at least not that I remember for psalm)

[Crell]

I'd feel more comfortable with from(): self / tryFrom(): ?self if voters were clear of the implications. Unless someone objects I'm going to start a thread on Internals tomorrow to highlight it and see if anyone has an issue with setting this precedent. If there's no serious pushback, then we can go with that.

[iluuu1994]

The downside of fromOrDefault is that with missing generics the return type would have to be mixed. My preference is tryFrom. I'm also cool with fromOrNull.

[Crell]

RFC updated to use from/tryFrom.

[Crell]

Leaving open until @iluuu1994 updates the implementation. Ilija, please close when you've done so.