[RFC] Trailing Boolean Operators

On 2/3/26 13:05, Len Woodward wrote:

I do not see the lack of trailing (dangling) operators as inconsistent with trailing commas. Commas aren't operators. Commas don't have precedence. They don't affect program flow like boolean operators. I think trailing boolean operators could be dangerous in very sneaky and nuanced ways. If you're concerned about diffs, put the boolean operators at the front: if ( $order->isPaid() && $order->isShipped() && $order->isDelivered() ) { $order->archive(); } Now, you can add more to the if statement without having a cumbersome diff. However, I would recommend reworking and simplifying the logic instead. The more boolean operators you add, the higher the cognitive complexity, and the more complicated your test cases are for this code path. I would vote "no" on this RFC. Cheers, Ben

Hi Len, I see that this is your first RFC, welcome, and well done on the RFC draft. The RFC text is quite detailed, and clearly brings the idea across. I appreciate that you explained your rationale, with simple examples, and a well-defined scope. Greatly done. As for the idea, however, I do not agree that this would be a net-positive change. I wanted to echo what Ben said in his reply too. Commas are fundamentally different from the operators like `&&` and `||`. One is a separator, the other is an operator. Trailing separators do not add to the confusion, and the benefits you mention in the RFC are meaningful improvements that do not add to visual confusion. `&&` and `||` are binary operators that require a right-hand operand. Your RFC removes this requirement from the syntax, but I believe they semantically still require a right-hand operand. I'm also not aware of any other languages that allow trailing operators. For PHP to add trailing commas, it had a strong argument in favor because other languages like JavaScript, Python, and of course C (among many other languages) supported it, and adding support for trailing commas was a natural progression. Back then, even this was argued quite a lot in the RFC discussions, and some proposals did not pass the vote. As Ben mentioned, the new-line, operator, and operand pattern solves the diff issue. Besides, changing the order of an `if` block is a significant change, and at least for me, not something I do often. For changes like this, I would rather like it to have a more visually stark diff. Thanks, Ayesh.

Hi Am 2026-02-03 20:05, schrieb Len Woodward:

Thank you for the RFC. I second Ayesh's remark with how well-written the RFC is. I have one minor housekeeping note: The Status in the RFC itself is still set to “Draft”. With regard to the “Trailing-Operator Style is Established” section, I'd like to note that the latest edition of the “Code Style published by PHP FIG” is the PER Coding Style 3.0 which requires the boolean operators at the start of the line: https://www.php-fig.org/per/coding-style/#51-if-elseif-else Other than that, I share the concerns that have already been voiced in this thread and thus won't repeat them. Best regards Tim Düsterhus

On Tue, 3 Feb 2026 at 20:07, Len Woodward <len@artisan.build> wrote:

and open discussion.

might be the better word) trailing boolean operator. Mirroring trailing commas. It's designed to be a purely additive QoL improvement to help reduce diffs.

Hi Len, Thank you for the proposal, and congratulations on your first RFC! However, I am not in favor of this specific change. Unlike commas, which serve as separators, binary operators functionally demand a right-hand operand. Allowing a trailing operator breaks this fundamental expectation and introduces unnecessary ambiguity. As a maintainer of a handwritten PHP parser (mago <https://github.com/carthage-software/mago>), I can attest that supporting this would be non-trivial. PHP's operator precedence/associativity is already quite a mess (reference <https://github.com/carthage-software/mago/blob/main/crates/syntax/src/parser/internal/expression.rs#L738-L797>), and introducing trailing boolean operators adds parsing complexity without providing proportional value to the language. Cheers, Seifeddine.