Object seems to behave like an array?

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December 29th, 2012, 04:17 PM

aeternus

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Object seems to behave like an array?

Hi guys,

since i am playing around with oop i noticed something useful (i think). When I did a var_dump on a config class like below I got pretty much the same result as with an associative array. May I assume this is could be useful for config settings or is it better to maybe use a define() for these settings. I kind of like this object approach, since i can use the autoloader.

PHP Code:


		
			
class Config {

    public $offline = '0';

    public $display_offline_message = '1';

    public $offline_image = '';

    public $editor = 'tinymce';

    public $captcha = '0';

       // .....          etc

}

P.s. this is part of a joomla config file for those interested.

-edit: yes I really think this can be very usefull, just discovered the get_class_vars() function which could be very useful for loading configuration variables I think. Any thoughts?

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Last edited by aeternus : December 29th, 2012 at 04:56 PM.

December 29th, 2012, 05:03 PM

Jacques1

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Hi,

sure, you can use classes to store configuration values. However, you should use constants if the values are not supposed to change during runtime.

If the configuration is supposed to be "human readable", you might also use a specialized language like YAML or JSON (or XML) instead of PHP scripts. This lets you get rid of all the code overhead.

December 29th, 2012, 05:30 PM

aeternus

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Jacques1

Thanks as always Jacques!
I haven't started that subject yet (as far as class constants), but It makes sense. This kind of data isn't meant to be changed indeed

You mean the class constants? or global defined constants? (someone said the later were slow)

Although I have no knowledge of code overhead

reading from an xml file into php sounds more costly (without anything to back that feeling up

).

Thanks again!

Last edited by aeternus : December 29th, 2012 at 05:36 PM.

December 29th, 2012, 06:02 PM

Jacques1

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I mean class constants. They're simply defined in the class body with the "const" keyword.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aeternus

Although I have no knowledge of code overhead

reading from an xml file into php sounds more costly

Well, does it matter? If you actually do experience performance problems, they're unlikely to be caused by the application itself, let alone the parsing of some lines of YAML.

So don't avoid this just because you think it's expensive.

With "code overhead" I mean everything that isn't relevant for the configuration data itself and merely exists for the PHP interpreter (keywords, function calls etc.)

Last edited by Jacques1 : December 29th, 2012 at 06:06 PM.

December 29th, 2012, 06:05 PM

aeternus

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okay, cool. Thanks for the tips! I'l make sure i'll use them

-edit: that YAML looks cool! (too bad i can't run it very easily on windows) i'll might try it with a virtualmachine

Last edited by aeternus : December 29th, 2012 at 06:17 PM.

Object seems to behave like an array?

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