Posted by Thomas Mlynarczyk on 11/18/05 09:45

Hi,

In many cases, one needs only a single instance of a class in a script.
Since PHP5 offers class variables like MyClass::$myVar and even class
constants, it seems to me that an instantiation is not needed. Is it
therefore okay and good practise to use a class without instantiation? In
that case I could regard such a class as a collection of functions and
variables that belong together in a way and the prefixed class name could
serve as a kind of namespace identifier:

include "myLib.php"
myLib::$somevar = 'some value';
myLib::somefunc( myLib::MY_CONSTANT );

Another question: In PHP4 I can have

class myLib { function myFunc() { /* do stuff */ } }
myLib::myFunc();

In PHP5, there is the "static" keyword. What exactly is the difference
between

class myLib { public static function myFunc() { /* do stuff */ } }
class myLib { public function myFunc() { /* do stuff */ } }

Greetings,
Thomas

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