"language construct" vs. "function" coding conventions

[DuneMessiah]

OK, that's going to be a strange post, but...

1) Is there an exhaustive list of language constructs somewhere?

Is it part of any coding conventions to enforce a space between
the name of a language construct and the parenthesis announcing its parameter list?

E.g.,

include_once ('my.inc');

vs.

include_once('my.inc');

I am interested in best practices and the most widely accepted coding conventions.

Such convention would allow to easily distinguish language constructs from functions.

Can anyone point me to some references?

Did Zend publish anything official in that regard?

[diego25]

I don't think there's such convention. When I code, I don't differentiate language constructs from functions. For example, I code my includes this way:

include('page.html');

but my usual print statement looks this way:

print "something";

Even though they are both language constructs, I code one with parenthesis, but the other one without. No particular reason though, just used to coding this way.

I don't think there is any advantage in differentiating between language constructs and functions.

Diego

[cgraz]

I do the same as Diego, and for the most part, I see most people do the same. includes and the like with parenthesis, but echo() and print() with no parenthesis. In fact, I think it looks a little weird when you use parenthesis on echo() or print() just because I'm so used to seeing it without.

But it's totally up to you and dependant on your preference. There isn't really a right or wrong way.

Cgraz

[DuneMessiah]

I understand there is no right or wrong way to do this.

I was just wondering if some strict coding conventions I am asked to follow were justified or not.

I guess they are just arbitrary.

[diego25]

Well, I've never heard of any coding conventions regarding language constructs vs. functions. I don't see any advantage in differentiating between them...

By the way, what's the convention that you're required to follow?

Diego

[DuneMessiah]

It's just an internal document.

The theory behind it is that our code can be parsed using some internally developed tool.
That tool relies on the specific convention to be applied to language constructs to detect potential coding errors or even to change the code automatically.
(E.g., that tools allows you to replace "dirname" or "include" with "better" implementations of those without you touching the code.)

[diego25]

Well, I would have to say that that tool wasn't coded properly. It if were designed properly, it wouldn't matter how many spaces there are after the construct - what would matter is the actual construct keyword itself!

Diego

[DuneMessiah]

I can't say I don't agree with you here.

[epimeth]

I use echo "" as well...

I think for me it looks wrong with parenthesis because thats what my QBasic echos looked like, too...