Operator for functions in PHP

Question

What is the "->" operator for functions called?

At the bottom of PHP: Operators - Manual (http://php.net/manual/en/language.operators.php) is the note:

"The -> operator, not listed above, is called "object operator" (T_OBJECT_OPERATOR)."

It has been down-voted 81 times. Is that because the operator is not called the "object operator"? Or is it because the note says that the operator is not listed?

I apologize if my criticism is not appropriate, but the operator is not properly documented. The "->" operator should be listed among the other PHP operators and there should be documentation of it.

The C++ standard calls the "." and "->" operators the "dot" and "arrow" operators, correspondingly. For example, see "5.2.4 Pseudo destructor call" in: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2014/n4296.pdf
That is the latest draft of the newest C++ standard.

PHP can call its "->" operator whatever the designers decide, but there should be a definition to eliminate the confusion of different names depending on personal preference. A book I am reading calls the operator the "arrow operator". Is it called the object operator (as implied by the tag) or the arrow operator or something else?

Answer 1

There is a difference between a token and an operator, I think people usually confuse the two. The -> is a parser token, indeed called the T_OBJECT_OPERATOR (not sure why that comment was downvoted).

Here is a complete list of PHP's parser tokens:
http://php.net/manual/en/tokens.php