Did you know about PHP’s old_function?
I was reviewing Upgrading to PHP 5 today and I came across this lovely section in Appendix B, which I had completely forgotten about:
PHP/FI had a quirky function declaration syntax:
function sum $a, $b ( return($a + $b); );
This was changed in PHP 3, but you could continue to use the old form in PHP 3 and PHP 4 if you declared your function as an old_function:
old_function sum $a, $b ( return($a + $b); );
Alas, after six years, this backward compatibility feature is now gone. Another nostalgic remnant of PHP/FI has passed away.
I must say, I used PHP/FI, but I never resorted to the old_function
hack to ease my PHP 3 migration issues.
Did anybody ever use this?
Comment by Chris Shiflett on 5 April 2006:
I never knew about that. Thanks for the history lesson. :-)
Comment by Rodney H. on 20 April 2006:
They should bring it back:
Totally_Retro_Dude sum $a, $b (
return($a + $b);
);