[Resolved] Classes, references, and hell

Moonglobe

Ok, i've just finally gotten around to testing my PEBoD class and i get this error upon initialisation:

Fatal error: Call to a member function is_parented() on a non-object in C:\webpage\webpage\incl\PEBoD.php on line 232

[edit] when the comment marks in the code below are removed[/edit]
now i have figured out that the PEBoD_Cage class constructer is at fault:

class PEBoD_Cage extends Cage
{
    public $parent;
    private $crack;
    public function __construct($input)
    {
        if (!is_object($input) && get_class($input) !== "pebod") 
        {
            $this->sf("Input not a proper object!");
            die("moo");
        }
        /*if (!$input->cage->is_parented()) */$this->parent = $input;        

        parent::__construct();
        $this->crack = 10.25;
    }

public function is_parented()
{
    if (!isset($this->parent))
    {
        return 0;
    }
    if (!is_object($this->parent))
    {
        return -1;
    }
    if (get_class($this->parent !== "pebod"))
    {
        return -2;
    }
    return 1;
}

now some of the is_parented function is for debug, as that should be taken care of by the constructor. so anyways, ive found that the $input->cage variable is not an object....... so that would lead me to believe that the refereneds arent working.

but wait...... this code works absolutely fine...... which means that they must be:

$moo = new PEBoD();
echo $moo->cage->is_parented();
$moo->cage->close();
echo (int)$moo->cage->parent->cage->is_open();

returns "10" as it should.

im VERY confused right about now 😕

Moonglobe

ok, seeing as noone has an answer, i guess i'll just have to cut the check out... the code still works, but now this:

$beaver = new PEBoD();
echo (int) is_object($beaver->cage->parent->cage->parent->cage->parent->cage->parent);

echoes 1. This isnt a big deal, as i guess that the references arent taking up much extra memory, if any, but it still degrades the quality of the class, if you ask me.

and im still confused as to why the $input variable being passed to the PEBoD_Cage constructor (which btw is the $this of the PEBoD class) isn't being passed with its subobjects. o well. thanks to all of you who gave some thought to this.

Moonglobe

Ok i figured it out. The $this->cage variable in the PEBoD class is NOT there when passed to PEBoD_Cage, because that's what's being put into PEBoD::cage. so i changed the is_parented call to isset($input->cage) , and set cage to be public, and it all works fine. Hope this helps someone sometime,

moon

Moonglobe

OK one last post: this problem is impossible to fix.

because all subojects are really references, you cant not set them. $beaver->cage will always have a ->parent, which happens to be the same as $beaver. likewise, $beaver->cage->parent will always have a ->cage, which is equal to $beaver->cage, etc, etc, etc.

so there is no way (that i can see) to resolve this problem. post any ideas, but i really think this is just impossible dy definition........🙁