A formal RFC has been submitted to the PHP internals mailing list proposing a new `.phpc` file extension that allows PHP files to be parsed as pure PHP code without requiring an opening `<?php` tag. The lexer would enter scripting mode on the first byte, and UTF-8 BOMs and CLI shebangs would be silently skipped. The change is strictly additive — existing `.php` files are unaffected. The reference implementation is ~50 lines of C in the Zend lexer with 15 new tests and zero regressions across 9836 existing tests. Open issues include the final extension name (`.phpc`, `.phpp`, `.pcode`, or `.phpx`), backward compatibility concerns, and security implications for misconfigured web servers. Early community responses are skeptical, with respondents questioning the real-world benefit and arguing that simply adding `<?php` at the top of a file already solves the problem.
