Question about classes

xenontheblue

It it at all possible to restrict the scope of a class definition?
For example -

I am creating a script, which will import third-party classes (made by the user), which potentially could have the same name - up to the point where they all have the same name.

Is there a way to nest classes within each other, or even faking it without invoking the "classes can't be nested" or "can't redeclare class" errors?

One major part of my project is "no additional dependencies" ... As in, my code should be able to execute properly on PHP alone, without any modules.

ahundiak

Nope. Each class within a given program must have an unique name. What you seem to be asking for is "namespaces" which may or may not be in PHP 6.

Not sure you really need to worry much about it. Makers of third party libraries almost always give their classes an unique prefix to avoid name collisions. PEAR is an exception and PHP itself now contains an increasing number of pre-built classes. But most other libraries play nicely together.

xenontheblue

ah, yes - namespaces seem like what i'm after ...

although, when i say third party classes - I mean classes that individuals have made personally, and specifically for integration with my system - the individuals will not know each other, and thus will not know names which are already used, and won't have their own unique prefixes

i was thinking about having every class having the same name i.e. "module" ... to make it simplistic - and allow for other classes within their own scripts ... seems like that's not going to work ... hm

I'm particularly after a module management system - modules should have the potential to be loaded all at the same time - which is why I was considering classes to begin with

now, that's all very well and good - could have some easy linear scripts as modules - but my system spec was to have modules, which could have submodules, and sub-submodules, etc, etc ... which could potentially be easy with classes within classes or same-name classes

Wonder if it's possible to dynamicaly name classes - something like this ... or whatever

<?php
     class $className
     {
          ...
     }

 $myClass = new $className;

?>

If something like that could be done, then i could just name the classes internally, dynamically ... no?

ahundiak

You can create classes dynamically by usng eval(). But what exactly are these classes going to do?

If you really expect to combine random classes from different people then tell them to use the java class naming convention of COM_DOMAIN_ as a prefix.

xenontheblue

well, in a nutshell - the classes could do anything and everything ... from simple print commands to clustered server control ...

as for the prefixes - that's honestly not an option for the scale that i'm going for ...

By the looks of it, I could use eval() to dynamically generate the class names ... but that would mean enclosing the whole class within an eval() ... I guess that could be relatively acceptable.

Maybe some other module system could work without using classes - only seem to be getting in the way ...

xenontheblue

Just one last nag, are we sure there's no way to dynamically name a class in it's definition? in the style:

class $className {
...
}

or with a function, or something? ... possible with eval() i know, but ... kinda lax with security, no? Like I read somwhere on my travels "if eval() is the answer, then most likely you're asking the wrong question" ...

then again, the only thing inside eval() would be class definitions - it's purely to swap out a variable with a class name - no idea ... anyone got any other ideas?