Classes and Includes

[Wynder]

Greetings,

I'm writing a custom MySQL class to help me with some of the repetitive functions and formatting we use. I store information such as the user/pass, hosts, and database name in a different file:

resources.php

<?php
$dbhost = "localhost";
$dbuser = "foo";
$dbpass = "bar";
$dbname = "foobar";
?>

And, in another file, I actually have the class definitions(example):

<?php 
include_once('resource.php');

class MySQL
{
   connect()
   {
      $mysqlcon = mysql_connect("localhost", "root", $dbpass);
      if( !mysql_errno() )
         return $mysqlcon;
      else
         echo "<div><div>DB Select Error: " . mysql_errno() . ": "
              . mysql_error() . "</div></div>\n";
   }
}

Now, I can see the variables set in resource.php outside of the class definition, but how do I get the reference the variables inside of the class definition?

Thanks!

[laserlight]

You can define your connect() member function to accept those relevant variables as arguments.

You could also declare them global within the function, but that can be considered bad practice.

[Wynder]

Might you be able to drop a little example code on me? I'm just starting to move into the OOP aspect of PHP, so I'm still sorting out the scope of variables in these regards.

Rob

[Wynder]

Figured it out -- I created a constructor for the MySQL class:

class MySQL
{
   var $user;
   var $pass;
   var $host;
   var $name;

   function MySQL()
   {
      include_once('resources.php');
      $this->host = $dbhost;
      $this->user = $dbuser;
      $this->pass = $dbpass;
      $this->name = $dbname;
   }

   function connect()
   {
      $mysqlcon = mysql_connect($this->host, $this->user, $this->dbpass);
      if( !mysql_errno() )
       echo "CONNECTED!"; //return $mysqlcon;
      else
         echo "<div><div>DB Connect Error: " . mysql_errno() . ": "
              . mysql_error() . "</div></div>\n";
   }
}

So, in the actual index.php, when the MySQL class is instantiated, it will initialize the variables and make them available to the rest of the class.

<?php
include_once("./mysql.php");

$SQL = new MySQL();
$con = $SQL->connect();

?>

[goldbug]

Wouldn't it make more sense to declare the connection params as constants.... chances are they aren't going to change at runtime.