4.0 | Generic.Functions.CallTimePassByReference: remove sniff

[rodrigoprimo]

Description

I suggest marking the Generic.Functions.CallTimePassByReference sniff as deprecated in the next minor version and removing it in 4.0.

Call-time pass-by-reference was deprecated in PHP 5.3 and removed in PHP 5.4.

PHPCS 3.x supports PHP >= 5.4. PHPCS 4.0 will drop support for PHP < 7.2.

There is a PHPCompatibility sniff to check for the use of call-time pass-by-reference: PHPCompatibility.Syntax.ForbiddenCallTimePassByReference.

[jrfnl]

The PHP version PHPCS supports is not relevant to the decision.

Having said that, I don't disagree with deprecating and removing the sniff. The sniff has always been a bit of an odd-one out between the sniffs in this package and I agree that PHPCompatibility would be the better tool to check for deprecated PHP syntax.

As PHP 5.4 was released in 2012, with the last security release in 2015, I can't imagine this sniff is still used much, so I think deprecating the sniff and removing it in 4.0 makes sense.

Action list:

• I will add a note to the changelog to soft deprecate in the next patch version.
• I will update PR Hard deprecate all sniffs which will be removed in PHPCS 4.0 #888 to hard deprecate the sniff in the last 3.x version.
• After that the sniff can be removed in 4.0. - PR Generic.Functions.CallTimePassByReference: remove sniff #982