Posted by Jochem Maas on 03/15/05 14:28

André Pletschette wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've got one function getTableName() which returns the Database-Table
> with the data of a class (see below).
>
> As you can see it always calls the static $tablename of the subclass
> described by $this->classname.

I solved this problem by doing the following:

abstract class DBTable
{
// we can't define abstract consts.
// but this must be defined in your subclass
// const TABLE_NAME = 'xxxxx';

// define this func in your subclasses
abstract function getTableName();
}

class C1 extends DBTable
{
function getTableName()
{
return self::TABLE_NAME;
}
}

it seems like a crap way of doing it but
its very flexible and easy to understand (it just doesn't
have that certain 'je ne c'est quoi') - none the less it
was born out of a need for major flexibility (for pretty
much similar reasons to you - namely generic data objects),
anyway it gives you many ways to skin the cat (get the tablename):

<?

$c = new C1;

echo $c->getTableName();
echo C1::getTableName();
echo C1::TABLE_NAME;

$a = 'C1';

if (defined("$a::TABLE_NAME")) {
echo constant("$a::TABLE_NAME");
}

if someone has a better way, bring it on :-) I'd love to be
able to improve my own code.

You may also want to look at the possibility of using class names
that are always indentical to the table names - I tried that but
I didn't like it.

>
> Thankyou,
> André
>
> Here the function:
>
> function getTableName() {
> if ($this->classname == "class1") {
> return class1::$tablename;
> } elseif ($this->classname == "class2") {
> return class2::$tablename;
> } elseif ($this->classname == "class3") {
> return class3::$tablename;
> }...
> ...
> }else {
> throw new Exception($this->classname." not found!");
> } }
>

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