[RESOLVED] Effective Use of Classes

farius

Hello everyone,

I am new to phpbuilder but not to PHP. I have about 2 years of active work with PHP and feel that it is now time to jump into the wonderful world of classes. Up until now I have been using functions without dealing with classes but with my next project (Which is the largest I have ever built) I am incorporating a self Error Reporting System that will catch errors and give detailed reports to admins, while giving different info to the client. Anyway i want to have a class that handles all of this.

What I am looking for is either some good articles that go beyond, "This is how to declare a class definition. Use the 'class' keyword.". I need a more in-depth explanation on how to design a good class structure. Using advanced class modifiers like 'abstract' and how to harness these tools that php gives the developer to effectively get the results I need with as little code as possible.

Articles, Books, Web Pages, Full Responses welcome. Thanks for your time,

Farius
Go BIG or Go HOME

NogDog

Book: PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice (2nd Edition) by Matt Zandstra (ISBN-10: 1590599098, ISBN-13: 978-1590599099)

For some of the basics, the same author has a couple on-line articles at ibm.com/developerworks: "Getting started with objects with PHP V5" and "Advanced PHP V5 Objects"

The book Head First Object-Oriented Analysis and Design ( ISBN-10: 0596008678, ISBN-13: 978-0596008673) is kind of interesting (I'm about half way through it right now). It's code examples are all in Java, but it's not that different from PHP 5 classes/objects and the analysis and design concepts all carry over to PHP.

PS: What I'm kind of getting at here is that you should try to concentrate on learning some of the OOP/OOA&D theory from the start, rather than just PHP-specific syntax. If you don't start thinking in an object-oriented way, then you just end up writing mostly procedural code that happens to include some objects.

laserlight

You would probably need to go through the material suggested by NogDog first, but after that I would suggest reading these four articles (warning: PDF):

Admittedly the examples are in C++, but once you have got the hang of UML you may be able to gloss over the actual code. The articles talk about principles, and there are trade-offs to be made when choosing to use them, but nonetheless these principles are good guidelines in object oriented design.

djjjozsi

Hello,

You should read this site too, it is using lots of examples.
http://hudzilla.org/phpwiki/index.php?title=Object-oriented_programming

NogDog

laserlight;10897806 wrote:
...

The Open-Closed Principle

...

From page 11:
[indent]
No Global Variables -- Ever.

The argument against global variables is similar to the argument against pubic member variables.
[/indent]
:eek: 😃

laserlight

Yes, they are that disgusting when not kept private. PHP 4 is pornographic. :p

farius

Thanks guys and gals for the quick and helpful responses. I will check out all the books and see what I can do.

Kind of of topic but is somewhat similar. I do a lot of work off line in planes and cars because of my line of work. Does anyone know of a good PHP manual usable on the iPhone? It would be great if I could could get a reference and manual to use on the go/off line. I found one but it is not off line.

Any suggestions?

laserlight

farius wrote:
Kind of of topic but is somewhat similar. I do a lot of work off line in planes and cars because of my line of work. Does anyone know of a good PHP manual usable on the iPhone? It would be great if I could could get a reference and manual to use on the go/off line. I found one but it is not off line.

Download the PHP manual in HTML format.