The concept of an Application in PHP?

killersites

Hi,

Given PHP5's new OO features, specifically the addition of static members, I was wondering if PHP has the concept of an ‘application context’ like you see in JSP / Servlets?

So for example, I would like to be able to keep an object in memory that would be available to all users who hit the website –this like a session var that is accessible to anyone hitting the server.

Thanks

mrhappiness

No, you can't share data (i consider an object as data as well) application wide with php 5 standard

you could implement kind of abblication object like you have in asp.net and jsp but this has to be done by you yourself
you could use files, database or shared memory for that

killersites

Hi,

If that is the case, then what is the use of static members? It would seem to have a very limited scope given what you just told me ...

Also; can you give a little more detail on how you would access shared memory with PHP?

Thanks

mrhappiness

static methods or members can be accessed without having to define an instance of the class

inside the class you can't access them via $this but via self::$static_var

you can't redefine static methods

shared memory: http://www.php.net/manual/ref.shmop.php

killersites

You said:

static methods or members can be accessed without having to define an instance of the class

Ok, works just like Java and C# but if you can't share objects application wide, then statics are limited to within the context of a session ... unless you store the object in shared memory, right?

Thanks again.

mrhappiness

right

killersites

Many thanks.

I'll start playing with shared memory.