Help needed with OOP design

rschuil

Hi all,

I am attemting to write an object-oriented classified ads system in PHP, just to learn some more about OOP in PHP4.
I found it to be very hard to come up with a good class design for my database. Therefore I would like to ask you guys who are experienced with OOP design to please help me getting started.

I wish to have the ads seperated in categories and subcategories. When placing an ad the user has to choose a category and corresponding subcategory.
For each category I have a database containing tables for each of it's subcategories. This allows me to extend certain categories with additional properties (such as model and year for cars).

Could someone design some classes for me, or does anyone know where to find good tutorials on designing OOP ad systems?

I know this thread sound a bit lame. It is hard to accept for me; I thought I had more than a few experience with PHP but I can't even come up with a robust OOP design 🙁

I thank you in advance.

Kind regards,

Robin

RussWright

Robin
From your post I cannot find enough information to help you design objects.

Here is what I do when I create classes I start by thinking in terms of the real world objects.

You have a user, what do you need to know about the user? What does the user do? You have adds, what do you need to know about the adds? Do the adds do anything?

Lets start there. Tell me some more about these objects and then we can begin designing classes. (and tables)

Regards
Russ

😃

rschuil

Okay, here is the story:

In my application a user is a person who has registered an account on the website. It is not required to register, however it makes things easier for the user (personal data is pre-filled in etc.).

The application consists of categories. Each category has it's own database. Properties of a category would be the database name, the category name, the top banner and the bottom banner.

A category has subcategories. Each subcategory has it's own table in the parent category database. Properties of a subcategory include the table name, the subcategory name, the top banner and the bottom banner. A subcategory may also hold information about the type of data in the subcategory (i.e. they could tell if it is a car (a car holds extra information about year and model) or a stamp (containing information about the country and how many were made)).
However, if this becomes too complex in the first phase please forget about it.

An advertisement represents a record in a subcategory table.
Advertisements always include information about the user (name,email,city,country,phone,fax,website) and standard information about the ad (title,description,price).
Depending on the subcategory the ad may also contain information like year,model,age,etc.

I think that is all.
I really appreciate that you want to help me!

Regards,

Robin

RussWright

Robin

I do not know your level of OO skill. So if i'm being to simple let me know.

One lesson my Jedi master taught me was this: How do you eat an elephant? - One bite at a time. So lets take small bites.

Start with the relationships. Every time a "has a" condition is met that is a relationship. Take a piece of paper and draw a box that represents each real wolrd object. Then start connecting in a cascading fashion.

For example:
a company "has a" customer
a customer "has a" order
an order "has a" salesperson

might look like:
COMPANY
*****|Customer
**********|Order
******************|Salesperson

Lets get that figured out. Once we get the realtionships started we can go from there creating properties.

As close as I can figure from your email, the relationships I see so far are:

Category has a subcategory
a subcategory has a ??? adversisment?

However I don't like the Category and subcategory name what do these categories and subcategories represent? What is the real world object they represent?

Regards
Russ