class creation advice

SeenGee

Hi,

I'm creating a class so i can unify some code into a single class so this can be used in different places in my application . I'm still pretty new to oop in php so i'm looking for some general advice. One of the things the class will need to do is allow a user account to be created in my system, very simple. In the case of class based php though i'm not sure on the best approach for getting the variables into the class as there are quite a few of them. I could use the approach of passing in an array but would it be better to explicitly declare each one, or would an entirely different approach be better?

the array approach would be something like this:

class user{
	var $userDets = array();	
	function create(){
		$sql = "INSERT INTO `users` SET
				`username` = '".$this->userDets['username']."',
				`firstname` = '".$this->userDets['firstname']."',
				`lastname` = '".$this->userDets['lastname']."',
				`company` = '".$this->userDets['company']."'";
		// etc.. etc...
	}
}
$person = new user();
$person->userDets = array('username'=>'boblogin','firstname'=>'bob','lastname'=>'testperson','company'=>'acme corp');
$person->create();

Drakla

You can do something like this:

class User
{
	var $userDets = array();
		// this will be exploded to load from later, could just as easily be an array
	var $properties = 'username,firstname,lastname,company';

	/**  */

function suckFromArray($arr)
{
	$this->userDets = array();	// clear it out

	foreach (explode(',', $this->properties) as $prop)
	{
		$this->userDets[$prop] = isset($arr[$prop]) ? $arr[$prop] : '';
	}
}
}

$gubbins = array('username'=>'boblogin','firstname'=>'bob','lastname'=>'testperson','company'=>'acme corp');

$user = new User();
$user->suckFromArray($gubbins);

That's quite a simple way of doing it, but stuff like this can reduce errors. The properties list can then be used to create SQL statements, etc.

EDIT: Just realised a tutorial I recommended earlier this week is good for this problem. http://phpriot.com/articles/databaseobject-intro

NogDog

Don't know if this would be considered a "best practice" or not, but I've done the following sort of thing a number of times:

<?php
class User
{
   protected $userData = array(
      'col_1' => null,
      'col_2' => null,
      'col_3' => null,
      // . . .
      'col_n' => null
   );

   /**
    * Set one element of $userData array
    * @return boolean
    * @param string $key
    * @param mixed $value
    */
   public function setUserDataElement($key, $value)
   {
      if(!isset($this->userData[$key]))
      {
         user_error(__METHOD__."(): Invalid userData key");
         return false;
      }
      $this->userData[$key] = $value;
   }

   /**
    * Set $userData array
    * @return boolean
    * @param array $arr
    */
   public function setUserDataArray($arr)
   {
      if(!is_array($arr))
      {
         user_error(__METHOD__."(): arg must be an array");
         return false;
      }
      $result = true;
      foreach($arr as $key => $value)
      {
         if($this->setUserDataElement($key, $value) == false)
         {
            $result = false;
         }
      }
      return $result;
   }
}
?>

SeenGee

thanks guys, as always there seems to be a number of ways this can be done. would be interested to hear any opinions on the solutions offered so far and any other possible methods for doing this.

SeenGee

Still not too sure on what improvements are offered by the suggested alternatives, anyone ?