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Doc Bug #68159 Ambiguous sentence in "Reference Counting Basics"
Submitted: 2014-10-05 17:51 UTC Modified: 2014-10-23 18:41 UTC
From: lech at nextlevels dot ndo dot co dot uk Assigned: aharvey (profile)
Status: Closed Package: Documentation problem
PHP Version: Irrelevant OS:
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
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 [2014-10-05 17:51 UTC] lech at nextlevels dot ndo dot co dot uk 
Description:
------------
---
From manual page: http://www.php.net/features.gc.refcounting-basics
---
The following sentence at the top of the "Compound Types" section seems to be ambiguous or incorrect...

"Instead of a scalar value, arrays and objects store their properties in a symbol table of their own."

This would seem to imply that, for example, a string stores its properties in a scalar value. Should it not be...

"As oppose to a scalar value, arrays and objects..."?

(with "properties" meaning the zval properties: type, value, refcount, is_ref)

or should it be...

"Arrays and objects store their properties/elements in a symbol table of their own."?

...where I have assumed properties refers to the object's properties, so therefore we should mention "elements" for arrays, and I have missed out the first part of the sentence, because it would be too complicated to state accurately.

Or am I missing the point? In any case, I think the current sentence is ambiguous and it would be great to understand this correctly.

Thank you for the interesting documentation explaining garbage collection!

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 [2014-10-23 18:41 UTC] aharvey@php.net 
Automatic comment from SVN on behalf of aharvey
Revision: http://svn.php.net/viewvc/?view=revision&revision=335125
Log: Fix doc bug #68159 (Ambiguous sentence in "Reference Counting Basics").
 [2014-10-23 18:41 UTC] aharvey@php.net
-Status: Open +Status: Closed -Assigned To: +Assigned To: aharvey
 [2014-10-23 18:41 UTC] aharvey@php.net 
This bug has been fixed in the documentation's XML sources. Since the
online and downloadable versions of the documentation need some time
to get updated, we would like to ask you to be a bit patient.

Thank you for the report, and for helping us make our documentation better.

Your "as opposed to" interpretation is the correct one. Thanks!
 
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