Posted by ELINTPimp on 08/24/07 01:34

On Aug 23, 8:41 pm, "burgermeiste...@gmail.com"
<burgermeiste...@gmail.com> wrote:
> First, let me say that this question is a rather general programming
> question, but the context is PHP, so I figured this group would have
> the most relevant insight.
>
> Anyways, this is also more of an opinion based question than one
> seeking a definite answer. Recently, while maintaining a rather large
> system. I needed to add an array class member to an object. It was
> exactly the same as another class member, except that one array stored
> regular products, and the other stored free promotional products. As
> such, I needed a way to add products to the new, free array. Since all
> the logic was the same between the two arrays aside from the price, I
> had a few different options to do this. I'm interested in polling
> which way some of the group members feel would have been the best.
> Naturally these are abbreviated versions of what I envisioned as
> possible solutions.
> #1.
> public function addArrayA($object){
> //logic
> $a[] = $object;
>
> }
>
> public function addArrayB($object){
> //same logic
> $b[] = $object;
>
> }

still have redundant logic, as you stated

>
> #2. (These next two are arranged as such, because the class using
> these functions is included in many script files,
> all of which I may not be aware of, so there would have to be some
> default value for the array that was always used
> before this new array was needed)
> public function addArray($object, $free = NULL){
> //logic
> if(!$free){
> $a[] = $object;
> }else{
> $b[] = $object;
> }
>
> }

not very good practice. when you start using conditional statements
within your code, it's a good canidate for refactoring. Seeing this
as a possibility, I probably would have created a abstract base
Products class, which it's child concrete classes would act as
containers for product items. The base class would contain all the
core functionality, and the child classes the specific elements.
Then, come time to add a new sibling class, it simply inherets from
the superclass and your good to go.

>
> or
>
> #3
> public function addArray($object, $arr = "a"){
> //logic
> $$arr[] = $object;
>
> }
>

I've actually done something similar to this before. Only 2 months
later I was cursing the programmer that came up with this
chaos....damn.

> I ended up going with option number 1, because I felt that despite the
> inefficient, redundant code it would later be more readable to other
> programmers that might work on the project. Additionally, I didn't
> feel wholly comfortable with default variables being the only
> difference between a full price product and a free product. Thoughts?

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