2015-04-26
One of the exciting things about PHP 7, aside from the incredible performance improvements, is the introduction of scalar type hinting coupled with an optional "strict" mode. When reading the RFC I noticed that PHP 7 code written with type hinting begins to look a lot like Hack. I wanted to find out if you could execute the same code in PHP 7 and Hack, and what the differences in execution might be. Here's what I found out.
Just to get this out of the way:
$ php --version
PHP 7.0.0-dev (cli) (built: Apr 23 2015 01:12:36) (DEBUG)
Copyright (c) 1997-2015 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.0.0-dev, Copyright (c) 1998-2015 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.0.6-dev, Copyright (c) 1999-2015, by Zend Technologies
$ hhvm --version
HipHop VM 3.8.0-dev (rel)
Compiler: heads/master-0-gd71bec94dedc8ca2e722f5619f565a06ef587efc
Repo schema: fa9b8305f616ca35f368f3c24ed30d00563544d1
In order to execute the PHP code in HHVM without modifying the opening tags in the source code files I had to execute hhvm with the -vEval.EnableHipHopSyntax=true flag set.
Let's look at a simple example.
Executing this in PHP 7 returns:
Fatal error: Argument 1 passed to myLog() must be of the type string, integer given, called in /home/vagrant/basic/main.php on line 9 and defined in /home/vagrant/basic/main.php on line 4
Looks good! PHP 7 is correctly telling us that we're passing an integer ($a + $b) into a function that is expecting a string and throws an appropiate error. Let's see what HHVM says:
Catchable fatal error: Argument 1 passed to myLog() must be an instance of string, int given in /home/vagrant/basic/main.php on line 6
There are a couple differences evident here:
Here's another example that illustrates an important difference between PHP 7 and Hack.
When executed in PHP this function happily executes. When executed in Hack we get this type error:
/home/vagrant/nullable/main.php:4:16,21: Please add a ?, this argument can be null (Typing[4065])
Hack doesn't allow default arguments with a value of null as it "conflates the concept of an optional argument with that of a required argument that allows a placeholder value" (See O'Reilly's new book Hack and HHVM). Instead, Hack recommends that you make such an argument nullable in addition to providing the default value, like so:
Let's try something a bit more complicated. What happens if we mix strict and non-strict files in PHP? Note that defining strict mode at the top of the file has no effect in HHVM.
logger.php is defined as being in strict mode, yet PHP allows us to pass an int into it from a non-strict mode file. HHVM throws an exception in the same scenario. What happens if we make add.php strict?
Fatal error: Argument 1 passed to myLog() must be of the type string, integer given, called in /home/vagrant/separate_files_mixed/add.php on line 5 and defined in /home/vagrant/separate_files_mixed/logger.php on line 4
That's better. So it looks like functions defined in a strict file are only strictly type checked if the calling code is also defined in a strict file. On the flip side, what happens if we call a non-strict function that is type annotated from a strict function? To test this I changed logger.php to be non-strict and made add.php strict:
Fatal error: Argument 1 passed to myLog() must be of the type string, integer given, called in /home/vagrant/separate_files_mixed/add.php on line 5 and defined in /home/vagrant/separate_files_mixed/logger.php on line 3
So it appears that functions are only strictly type checked if they are called from a function that is defined in a file declared as strict. However, this only affects direct child calls of the file declared as strict. If we declare main.php strict, PHP happily returns 4 despite the mismatched type we are passing into log().
In Hack this relationship is reversed. If HHVM executes main.php in non-strict mode, and logger is written in Hack (with a hh tag at the top of the file) we still get a type error despite the fact that the file making the call is not written in Hack.
Catchable fatal error: Argument 1 passed to myLog() must be an instance of string, int given in /home/vagrant/separate_files_mixed/logger.php on line 5
Another interesting difference between Hack and PHP's type system comes from PHP's handling of the float annotation. Take this code example:
When executed in PHP this returns '3' even though we are passing ints where we have annotated a float, and despite the fact that strict mode is enabled. The reason for this is that widening primative conversion is supported in PHP 7's strict mode. This means that parameters annotated as float can accept an int as (almost) any int can be safely converted to a float. HHVM does not support this and will throw a type error when the above code is executed:
Catchable fatal error: Argument 1 passed to add() must be an instance of float, int given in /home/vagrant/main.php on line 6
If there are any other big differences I've missed, or other scenarios I should enumerate here, please let me know in the comments. I would love to keep exploring!
While there are many features in Hack that PHP 7 does not support (nullable, mixed types, void return types, collections, async, etc) I am excited by the safety and readibility PHP 7's new strict mode enables.
After writing a couple small programs in Hack I've realized that it's not types themselves that make writing Hack enjoyable: it's the tight feedback loop Hack creates between the machine and myself. Integrating the Hack type checker into my editor means that my entire codebase is analyzed in a split second as soon as I save a file. This immediately surfaces any dumb, or subtle mistakes I made. I find myself writing code fearlessly: when I forget what a function returns, I just write code that calls it with what I think it returns. If I'm wrong, the type checker will tell me immediately. I can fix it quickly, and move on.
PHP has always facilitated a tight feedback loop between the machine and the developer. Save the file, reload the browser, repeat. Hack's type checker makes this even faster. I look forward to being able to build similar tooling on top of PHP 7's strict mode.