Posted by Jochem Maas on 06/01/05 13:38

Marcus Bointon wrote:
> On 1 Jun 2005, at 09:01, janbro wrote:
>
>> require (Class2.php);

I bet you didn't cut'n'paste that from a working file :-)

>> class Class1{
>> private function ... {
>> $refClass2 = new Class2;
>> }
>> }
>>
>> Now my question, is it possible to skip that require/ include part? In
>> Java you don't need that, as class and file names are identical.
>
>
> PHP doesn't have this luxury - people can call files whatever they
> like. However, PHP5 does have a nice feature to deal with this. In your
> class1 class, create a function called __autoload like this:
>
> function __autoload($class_name) {
> require_once $class_name . '.php';
> }
>
> In this case when you ask for a new class2 and you've not required it
> before, it will automatically call __autoload with $class_name set to
> 'Class2', which then requires the class file according to the pattern
> used in the function, in this case 'Class2.php'. Note that while PHP is
> not case sensitive to class names, the file system you're on probably
> is, so keep your case consistent throughout.
>

all true, now imagine that you install a couple of 3rdparty php5 'packages'
and they all define __autoload() - ain't gonna work! which is why there has been
discussion on internals regarding the possibility of use a handler-function stack
for autoloading (in the same way that you can register a stack of input/output
filter-function)... something to keep an eye on in case things change :-)

you may also consider that placing suitable require statements (I would
use require_once for class files) before a class definition will
probably/possibly (I don't know but it may be important to your project)
be a minor performance boost over letting php call _autoload() whenever it
needs.

> Docs are here: http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.autoload.php
>
> Marcus

[Back to original message]