[colecut]

PHP string / array functions are consistent.

string functions use (haystack, needle) and array functions use (needle, haystack)

because that's the way the underlying C libraries also worked

[Einenlum]

They're not though.

array_filter takes (arr, callback)

https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.array-filter.php

array_map takes (callback, arr)

https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.array-map.php

[goykasi]

array_map is variadic. It is actually (callback, ...arr)

One function works against a single element, whereas the other works against multiple. In that case, the parameter order is more meaningful. You can use array_walk if you want (arr, callback), but that only works against a single array -- similarly to array_filter.

[exasperaited]

This is "english-sentence-order-consistent", as it goes.

Array filter is "filter this array with this function".

Array map is "map this function over this array".

But I agree any replacement function should be consistent with Haskell.

[eurleif]

One can construct English sentences in the opposite order. There is no singular "English sentence order".

"Filter for this function in this array"

"Map over this array with this function"

[goykasi]

But thats not correct. array_map is variadic. So it should actually be "Map over these arrays with this function."

When you use the correct verbiage, the parameter order makes sense.

[exasperaited]

Right, but these are both more unwieldy.

One filters something with something else, in the real world. Filter water with a mesh etc.

And (in maths, at least) one maps something onto something else. (And less commonly one maps an area onto paper etc.)

Just because you can make your two sentences does not make them natural word order.

[quietbritishjim]

> And (in maths, at least) one maps something onto something else.

Yes, but that's the opposite of what you said earlier. You might map x onto 2*x, for example. Or, if you're talking about a collection, you might map the integers 0..10 on to double their value. Data first, then the way you're manipulating it. I'm a mathematician and this is what makes sense to me.

I would only say "map this function..." if the function itself is being manipulated somehow (mapped onto some other value).

[hnlmorg]

When you consider that PHP is used by hundreds of thousands of non-native English speakers, I don’t really think you can make a legitimate claim that “English sentence order” trumps “consistent argument ordering”.

There’s enough viral videos online of how even neighbouring European counties order common sentences differently. Even little things like reading the time (half past the previous hour vs half to the next hour) and counting is written differently in different languages.

So modelling the order of parameters based on English vernacular doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for programming languages used by programmers of all nationalities.

[exasperaited]

> When you consider that PHP is used by hundreds of thousands of non-native English speakers, I don’t really think you can make a legitimate claim that “English sentence order” trumps “consistent argument ordering”.

Well that’s good, because I didn’t.

[Y-bar]

> because that's the way the underlying C libraries also worked

I feel like this is a weak defence of the internally inconsistent behaviour. As someone who has been programming with PHP for over twenty years now, most of them professionally, I still cannot remember the needle/haystack order in these functions, I thank intellisense for keeping me sane here.

As evident with this pipe operator, or with for example Attributes, PHP does not need to religiously follow the C way of doing things, so why not improve it instead of dismissing it as "it is the way it is because that is the way it was"?

[chuckadams]

It's not so much a defense as it is an explanation of the historical origins. Even the creator of the language doesn't defend the inconsistencies and admits that they were a mistake. PHP also takes backward compatibility pretty seriously and doesn't rearrange things for consistency's sake alone.

[account42]

So they are consistent because they are consistently inconsistent??

There isn't a good reason for PHP to have inherited C's issues here.

[goykasi]

In the early days of PHP, it relied heavily on wrapping the underlying C libraries and preserving their naming conventions.

https://news-web.php.net/php.internals/70950

[gbalduzzi]

And that was fine in the early days, absolutely.

We are not in the early days though, and in many other aspects PHP evolved greatly.

[goykasi]

What are the benefits? Code completion, AI agents, etc will handle it for you. No one's life is falling apart because the param ordering is more similar to C than a blog article complaining about it decade ago. Php devs have had up 30 years to learn the difference. Are C devs complaining about this?

If we want to change the param order of str/array functions for php, I think we should start with fixing the C libraries. That seems like a better starting point. The impact will certainly be more beneficial to even more developers than just php.

[gbalduzzi]

Because it would be more predictable, easier to memorize, less verbose, easier to use for developers coming from other modern languages and more comfortable to work with.

The fact that they are chaotic since 30 years ago is not a valid reason for keeping them chaotic right now.

Also, I'm not even arguing they should change the existing functions, that would break all existing code for almost no reason.

I think they should "simply" support methods on primitives, and implement the main ones in a chainable way:

"test string"->trim()->upper()->limit(100);

[0,1,2]->filter(fn ($n) => $n % 2 === 0)->map(fn($n) => $n * 2);

I would love this so much

[gbalduzzi]

`strlen`, `strncmp` and `strtolower` but `str_split` and `str_contains`.

How it that consistent?