What does this do???

[Anon]

What does
->
mean?? I really dont know and my examples use them and I dont know what they do/mean.

Thanks,
-Frank

[Anon]

That is used to refer to another object, typically a class object.

say you define a class as:
$db = new ConnnectToDatabase();

then if you want to run a query using that class you woudl use somethign like so..

$query = $db->QueryDatabase("SELECT * FROm....");

See?

[Anon]

Actually, you instantiate an object as such...

$db = new ConnectToDatabase;

ConnectToDatabase is the name of an existing class. Now the -> symbol is to reference a function (in this example) within the object. It's very important to note that it's within the object. In some languages, they are called member functions, in others (like Java I think) methods. I call them member functions.

So if the ConnectToDatabase class has the below member functions?

close_connect()
query()
get_rows()
fetch_object()
fetch_array()
and so on.....

Any of these member functions can be accessed from an object (which is just an instance of a class) with something like

$db->query($your_query_string);

There are a couple of good tutorials here on this stuff. They should really help. I will also say that until you have a firm grip of just plain ol' programming (as opposed to Object Oriented Programming), then don't worry about the OOP stuff too much. It's a little confusing in the beginning.

If you need more help, let me know.

Big Din K.R.