I mean, there's no reason why it shouldn't work. An emoji is just a Unicode character (OK, not just a character - but we'll get on to that), so it should be fine to use anywhere.
Emoji work perfectly well as function names:
function ๐บ๐ถ() { echo "catdog!";}๐บ๐ถ();
Definitions:
define( "โ", "huh?" );echo โ;
And, well, pretty much everywhere:
class ๐ฆ{ public int $๐ฆ; public ?string $๐ฆ; public function __construct(int $๐ฆ, ?string $๐ฆ) { $this->๐ฆ = $๐ฆ; $this->๐ฆ = $๐ฆ; }}$๐ = new ๐ฆ(1234, "birb");echo $๐->๐ฆ;
How about namespaces? Yup!
namespace ๐;class ๐ { public function ๐() { echo "Wink!"; }}use ๐๐;$๐ = new ๐();$๐->๐();
Even moderately complex Unicode sequences work:
echo <<<๐ณ๏ธโ๐Unicode is magic!๐ณ๏ธโ๐;
I've written before about the Quirks and Limitations of Emoji Flags. The humble ๐ณ๏ธโ๐ is actually the sequence U+1F3F3 (white flag), U+FE0F (Variation Selector 16), U+200D (Zero Width Joiner), U+1F308 (Rainbow).
Probable the most complex emoji has 10 different codepoints! It looks like this - ๐ง๐พโโค๏ธโ๐โ๐ง๐ป
And it works!
$๐ง๐พโโค๏ธโ๐โ๐ง๐ป = "Kiss Kiss. Bang Bang!";echo $๐ง๐พโโค๏ธโ๐โ๐ง๐ป[-1];
There are some emoji which don't work;
$5๏ธโฃ = "five";
The 5๏ธโฃ emoji is U+0035 (Digit Five), U+FE0F (Variation Selector 16), U+20E3 (Combining Enclosing Keycap). PHP doesn't allow variables to start with digits, so it craps out with PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected integer "5", expecting variable or "{" or "$" in php shell code on line 1
You also can't use "punctuation" emoji as though they were normal characters:
echo 5 โ= 6;
And, while not strictly emoji, you can't use mathematical symbols:
echo 5 โค 6;
So, there you have it. Is this useful? Well, probably. It is easy to get lost in a sea of text - so little pictograms can make it easier to see what you're doing. If the basic ASCII characters aren't part of your native language, perhaps it is useful to make use of the full range of Unicode.
Does your favourite programming language support Emoji?
