[RESOLVED] (not horribly important) Class Extension Naming Convention

slindstr

Hi everyone,

This question is more out of curiosity than anything - it's not horribly important.

I'm using the MVC Design Pattern for a project I'm working on. The way I've got my file tree set up is like this (for ease of explanation let's say I'm writing a piece for a calendar):


-- /
   +
    |--classes
    |      +
    |       |--calendar
    |                +
    |                 |--Model
    |                 |--View
    |                 |--Controller
    |
    |--index.php

Now we all know it's best to have a descriptive filename so I would name the files inside the calendar folder something like:

Calendar_Model.Class.php
Calendar_View.Class.php
Calendar_Controller.Class.php

My question is this: if they were named:

Calendar.Model.php
Calendar.View.php
Calendar.Controller.php

and I tried to instantiate them, does PHP blow up because you would declare a new Calendar() and it wouldn't know which to instantiate even though they have different extensions?

I would try myself but I don't have access to PHP while I'm away for the holiday.

Thanks
Steve

bpat1434

No, you can name the files however you want. The file extension is the from the last "." character and on. So PHP would only go crazy if the file isn't there. Otherwise php will include whatever file you want and parse it. So you could have "Calendar.Model.php.bpat1434.01012008-000001.inc" as a file name and PHP would still work properly if this were included in another file.

I think you misunderstood what an extension is. It's not the first "." character, but the last "." character and all text to the right of it.

Weedpacket

The file extension is only a hint to applications about what sort of thing the file might be; it's only (as bpat1434 hinted at) only relevant to an application that has to guess at what it's supposed to do with the file just from looking at its name. Strictly speaking, there is nothing special about the '.' in a filename.

If the application already knows what sort of file it's supposed to be you could call it "calendar.Model.wee", or for that matter, "Calendar.Model" and leave it at that.

Where that falls down of course is that since this is happening within the web's document tree, the web server needs to work with these files as well; and unless you're prepared to explain all that to the server, it's probably best to just continue to put ".php" on the end and continue to tell the server that files ending with ".php" are to be sent to PHP for processing.

slindstr

So then if I wanted to instantiate the three files I mentioned above, would it be:

$model      = new Calendar.Model();
$view       = new Calendar.View();
$controller = new Calendar.Controller();

Thanks
Steve

laserlight

No, it would just be:

$model      = new Model();
$view       = new View();
$controller = new Controller();

NogDog

You need to [man]require_once/man the files, then the new is applied to the actual class names used in the class definitions within those files.

Calendar.Model.php:

<?php
class CalendarModel
{
   // class definition here
}

index.php:

<?php
require_once 'Calendar.Model.php';
$cm = new CalendarModel();

slindstr

You guys are missing my question entirely. I know all about requiring files and the lot of that, and I already figured it out.

Here is my original question:

I have three files:

Calendar.Model.php
Calendar.View.php
Calendar.Controller.php

How would I instantiate them? Would it be:

$model = new Calendar.Model();
$view = new Calendar.View();
$controller = new Calendar.Controller();

The answer is no - and this is because PHP will not let you declare a class with a period in its name. Simple as that.

Your filename can be Calendar.Model.php, but your class name cannot be for this reason.

The problem with my original question was that (for whatever reason at the time) I assumed that your class name had to be the same as the filename, which isn't true. My mistake.

Thanks
Steve

laserlight

You guys are missing my question entirely.

cough
I actually did give you an example of what you should use.

slindstr

You sure did but that wasn't my question.

Thanks

laserlight

You sure did but that wasn't my question.

Your question was:
"So then if I wanted to instantiate the three files I mentioned above, would it be"
My answer was:
"No, it would just be:"

If this was not answering your question, then what is?

Admittedly, I should have guessed that you did not know and thus elaborated that this is due to PHP not having namespaces/packages that use such Java-like syntax. Actually, PHP does not even have namespaces/packages at the moment, but that is due to change in PHP6.

Honestly, I am happy to see people figuring out things on their own, which is also why my answers tend not to be too elaborated unless it is the Newbies forum.

slindstr

Like I said above,

The problem with my original question was that (for whatever reason at the time) I assumed that your class name had to be the same as the filename, which isn't true. My mistake.

so I assumed that if I named the file Calendar.Model.php the class ALSO had to be named "Calendar.Model", but as I also said before,

PHP will not let you declare a class with a period in its name.

and

I would try myself but I don't have access to PHP while I'm away for the holiday.

but since I'm home now I can try everything out myself before I ask any questions on this forum 🙂

Thanks
Steve

bpat1434

Just out of curiosity, if you thought the name of the file dictated what classes were declared in the file, what about functions? Does that mean you though a file name of my.Function.php had to have only one function of "my.Function" as the name in it?

Where did you get this idea that the file-name dictates what's in the PHP file?

slindstr

Negative Ghost Rider - in Java the class name is supposed to be the same as the filename (although there are some exceptions i.e. inner classes ).

Thanks
Steve

laserlight

Negative Ghost Rider - in Java the class name is supposed to be the same as the filename (although there are some exceptions i.e. inner classes ).

Heheh, I guessed as much 🙂

With both a C++ and Java background, I sometimes write these kinds of for loops in PHP:

for (i = 0; i < 10; ++i)
{
    echo $array[i];
}

Weedpacket

So you're free to come up with your own convention for mapping between class- and file-names.

If you're inclined to do so then there is a distinct advantage in making it computable (at least in the class->file direction); if you can write a function that, given a class name, determines the name of the file in which its definition is found, then you could call it [man]__autoload[/man].