[Resolved] include functions only as needed...

[vaaaska]

I'm pretty sure this is possible. I've done some research and even did a little code examination on a web application but I could come across what I was looking for...

Generically speaking, how do I include functions only as needed into a file? And, if for example you end up requiring 40 (just tossing out a large number) wouldn't this possibly be just too many includes?

I'm pretty sure that I'd need a couple classes to handle the act of including the function file (file.function-hello.php) and also one to handle the specific calling of the function...something like...

if function exists and file exists then include...

Thanks for any advice on this...v

[Shrike]

This is an issue that has been dealt with in PHP 5 with the __autoload() function. I'm not sure of any good way with PHP 4 since the functions won't exist until the file has been successfully included.

I suppose you could wrap function calls with a class, and have the class look for and include the file before calling the function?

class FunctionCaller
{
  function call($func, $args = NULL)
  {
    if(function_exists($func))
    {
      return $func($args);
    }
    elseif(file_exists($file = $funcsdir . "/" . $func . ".php"))
    {
      require_once($file);
      return $func($args);
    }
    else
    {
      die("Call to undefined function $func()");
    }
  }
}
$functionresult = FunctionCaller::call("myFunction");

Certainly not the most elegant way to do things 😉

[vaaaska]

Originally posted by Shrike

Certainly not the most elegant way to do things 😉

But easy enough for me to understand what's going on here...this is a good place for me to start.

Thanks for that...v

[Shrike]

Thinking about it I don't know why I said use a class. There's no need really, you could just strip the method out 🙂