Help with classes

Paranormalcy

Good day.

I am a noob when it comes to OOP. I just read a chapter in my php book on classes and I am having a bit of trouble putting 2 and 2 together.

So the idea that i gained from everything is that a class is contained in its own file. This file is called(and i may be wrong on this) class.inc

It seems to me as though this is a seperate file.

When i look at other chapters in the book further down the road speaking about content management systems and shopping carts etc, they usually list the files included to make the example work. I never see a .inc file included in that list.

What am i missing and how would i implement classes with such a large example. I know these examples are using classes becuase i see the implementation in the code. I just dont know how they are referencing them without the .inc file.

Please provide any insite into this issue as you can. I appreciate your help in advance.

vaaaska

They are going to get the file via the normal means...include, require. An 'inc' file is just a name...it doesn't refer to anythin within php. It could be inc, php, txt or whatever - php grabs the info and parses it whatever it is.

Hope that clarifies things for you.

CaptainK

A class does not have to be contained in its own file. You can put a class anywhere within your code. It is just for clarity and sensible coding to include it in its own file.

thorpe

also, naming a file with the inc file extension is actually a bad idea. if someone finds this file, and types its address directly into there browser ie: http://yoursite.com/your.class.inc, php will not (by default) parse it and they would be able to see your code.

i always name my classes with a php extension and the word class in there name. ie user.class.php.

Paranormalcy

Thanks for all of your help guys! I had an idea that this was the idea

"They are going to get the file via the normal means...include, require. An 'inc' file is just a name...it doesn't refer to anythin within php. It could be inc, php, txt or whatever - php grabs the info and parses it whatever it is. "

jara06

I usually have filenames this way:
someclass.class.php
somefunctions.inc.php
index.php

neverever nothing else than .php.