Posted by Todd Cary on 11/26/05 18:54

Olli -

A very well thought out answer. I especially liked the part, "I see the
benefits of a class when functions start sharing variables.".

Todd

Oliver Grätz wrote:
> Todd Cary schrieb:
>
>>My background is in Object Oriented Pascal (Delphi), however I am having
>> difficulty knowing when to make a class in PHP. For instance, in my
>>script file, functions.php, I have these functions among others:
>>
>> /* Input a field */
>> function input_field($name, $value, $size, $max) {
>> echo('<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="' . $name . '" VALUE="' . $value .
>> '" SIZE="' . $size . '" MAXLENGTH="' . $max . '">');
>> };
>>
>> /* Input a password field */
>> function input_password_field($name, $value, $size, $max) {
>> echo('<INPUT TYPE="password" NAME="' . $name . '" VALUE="' . $value .
>> '" SIZE="' . $size . '" MAXLENGTH="' . $max . '">');
>> };
>>
>>
>>Should I have a class that contains these functions (methods)?
>
>
> Simple answer:
> If YOU don't see the benefits of a class then you shouldn't use one.
>
> Longer answer:
> I see the benefits of a class when functions start sharing variables.
> Then you would have to use $GLOBALS or the global keyword. This is a big
> indication that the functions should instead be inside a class and that
> the variables should be properties of that class.
> Of course, when you start using classes you slowly move to using classes
> even if they're not absolutely necessary as with your two functions up
> there. Then one notices that there are even more types of input fields
> (radio buttons, hidden fields, select boxes...) and that they have
> something in common (attributes of the input tag). So one could think
> "Hey, why not make a base class for all fields?". And so on...
>
> OLLi

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