Sorry for raising such an ancient topic.
Аccidentally noticed, that construction like `$arr['undefined']?->foo()->bar` causes error, and not behaves the same, as `($arr['undefined'] ?? null)?->foo()->bar`.
Readed docs, PHP: rfc:nullsafe_operator, asked google and learned, that there were much discussions about such behavior, and it was chosen deliberately. Nevertheless, structures like `(($arr['undefined'] ?? null)?->foo()->bar)` does not looks pretty for me. `$arr['undefined']->foo->bar ?? null` works great, until function calls appears in chain, and `$arr['undefined']->foo()->bar ?? null` breaks. It looks like objects are our favorites for short and safe operations, but arrays are not.
But during development, you can equally easily encounter typed arrays (for example, with a structure described through phpdocs), and working directly with properties, and traditional getters. An structured associative array that has optional fields is also a common pattern. And in large projects these patterns they can be found in almost any combination.
So it looks like the language needs a construct for pretty code in such cases. What do you think it should look like?
* Make nullsafe operator to be coalescing too. Making `$arr['undefined']?->foo()->bar` no to cause error, but return null
* Some new coalescing-nullsafe-operator, `??->`. `$arr['undefined']??->foo()->bar` suppressing all errors to the left same way `??` does.
* Some new nullsafe-array-access operator `$arr?-['key']`. This leads to `$arr?-['key']->foo()->bar` for cases where we are sure that array has key. Supposed short-circuiting working here too.
* Some new coalesce-array-access operators `$arr??-['key']`. Making `$arr??-['key']->foo()->bar` for cases, there we are not sure, that array has key.
* Suppress function call on nulls and undefined errors in `$var->foo()->bar() ?? null`.