What's __halt_compiler in PHP for?

Question

From the manual:

void __halt_compiler ( void )

This function halts the execution of the compiler. This can be useful to embe

Answer 1

Here's another possible use. I have a long file of PHP functions. Many of these aren't currently valid, but might be required soon. I want to disable them, but not entirely delete them. I want the code to remain visible to all developers so that they can reinstate the code if they need it. Also anyone searching via grep would still find the code.

So I move the code to the end of the file, and want to "comment it out". However the functions themselves have comments in. So I would need to start a new block comment after the end of each block comment in the original code. __halt_compiler(); does the job without changing any other lines.

(If I delete the code and commit that to a version control system, that does allow me to reinstate the code, but it wouldn't be visible to other developers unless they new to look.)