--- title: [RFC] Function Autoloading (mark 5) | daily.dev description: Paul M. Jones has submitted a 5th RFC attempt to add function autoloading to PHP, with an accompanying pull request against php-src. The discussion thread... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-function-autoloading-mark-5--vdmp82sva twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: [RFC] Function Autoloading (mark 5) | daily.dev og:description: Paul M. Jones has submitted a 5th RFC attempt to add function autoloading to PHP, with an accompanying pull request against php-src. The discussion thread... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-function-autoloading-mark-5--vdmp82sva og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/vdmp82SVa.png og:image:alt: [RFC] Function Autoloading (mark 5) og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # [RFC] Function Autoloading (mark 5) **[externals.io](https://daily.dev/sources/externals)** · 19 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Paul M. Jones has submitted a 5th RFC attempt to add function autoloading to PHP, with an accompanying pull request against php-src. The discussion thread covers key design challenges: the function autoloader fires only after name resolution has already occurred and the global fallback is exhausted, meaning the original namespaced name is unavailable to the autoloader. Contributors debate whether a second autoloader call with the global name would reduce edge cases, and whether a declare() directive (e.g., strict_namespace or function_const_ns) should be introduced to control how unqualified function names are resolved, avoiding silent fallback to the global namespace. Concerns are raised about the risk of accidental global namespace hijacking and unpredictable behavior depending on load order. The thread also explores potential use cases such as configurable per-namespace functions and reducing dependency injection boilerplate in tests. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [\[RFC\] Function Autoloading \(mark 5\)](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-function-autoloading-mark-5--syvl0dgqp) · externals.io · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [\[RFC\] Function Autoloading \(mark 5\)](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-function-autoloading-mark-5--43ipbqxro) · externals.io · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [\[RFC\] Function Autoloading \(mark 5\)](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-function-autoloading-mark-5--3riach6bt) · externals.io · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [\[RFC\] Function Autoloading \(mark 5\)](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-function-autoloading-mark-5--wxshmmoqu) · externals.io · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [\[RFC\] Function Autoloading \(mark 5\)](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-function-autoloading-mark-5--xbqdlxojc) · externals.io · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#php](https://daily.dev/tags/php) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-function-autoloading-mark-5--vdmp82sva) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"[RFC] Function Autoloading (mark 5)","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-function-autoloading-mark-5--vdmp82sva","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/rfc-function-autoloading-mark-5--vdmp82sva"},"datePublished":"2026-07-07T17:11:37.371Z","dateModified":"2026-07-07T17:12:08.156Z","description":"Paul M. 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