Okay in PHP4 - why not in PHP3???

Anon

Hi All!

Okay, below is a bacis piece of code that I'm trying to build a news engine from:

class NewsStory
{
var $NewsID;
var $Author;
var $Headline;
var $TimeStamp;
var $NewsText;

function NewsStory($NewsID = "", $newHeadline = "", $newNewsText = "", $newAuthor = "", $newTimestamp = "")
{
    $this->Author = $newAuthor;
    $this->Headline = $newHeadline;
    $this->Timestamp = $newTimestamp;
    $this->NewsText = $newNewsText;
}

}

class News
{
var $Stories;

function News()
{
    $this->Stories = array();
    $this->Stories[] = new NewsStory();
    $this->Stories[] = new NewsStory();
}

}

$NewsMain = new News();
$NewsMain->Stories[0]->NewsID = 5;

Now, why on my server running PHP3 does the last line generate a parse error when on my system running PHP4 it doesn't?

Is there any work around for it?

Have I just got it completely wrong?

Help!!!!!!!!

Anon

i would assume that PHP3 doesnt allow to have objects inside a class, but that's just an assumption.

Anon

Thanks for the quick response but...

Nope, that's not it. I can have simple objects within a class but the problem seems to arise when I try to use an array of objects within a class.

Is my syntax correct? What is the right way to reference attributes of an object from an array within another object?

Somebody please help!!!!

Anon

well, than I guess this would be it (array of objects). PHP3 has a poor support for classes. If it works fine in PHP4, there is no syntax problems, right?

Anon

Thanks again!

I can even use arrays of objects with no problems. It's just when I try and reference an attribute of those objects that I get problems.

I'm thinking that a workaround might be:

$temp = $NewsMain->Stories[0];
$temp->NewsID = 5;
$NewsMain->Stories[0] = $temp;

Any ideas?

Anon

It's a known problem with PHP3.
You can't assign a value to a member variable when the reference of the object is stored in an array.

Your idea is the only way I know.

This bug is corrected with PHP4.

Anon

Thanks very much...all of you!

I have one more question: Doing it my way in C would result in an unusable fragment of memory clogging up the system since, effectively I'm overwriting the pointer with a new address.

Being fairly new to PHP, will I still face this problem? Should I unset() the old NewsStory object before I but the modified one back into the array?

Thanks again!