Posted by Jochem Maas on 05/09/05 21:10

Leonardo Pedretti wrote:
> I would like (for code cleanliness purposes) to make 'new' return a reference
> to an already created object under certain circumstances without using a
> factory, is it possible?

not unless you hack the php engine (in which case
your code will only work on your custom php build),
I'll bet money that none of the php/zend devs feel anything for introducing
this kind of 'magic' into engine.

IMHO a factory would be a clean method of handling this behaviour and
has the benefit that no programmer looking at your code will
misinterpret occurances of the 'new' keyword. e.g.:


class Test
{
/* ... */
function __construct() {}
function get() {}
}

// and do:

$var = Test::get( /* pass ctor args */ );

// instead of:

$var = new Test( /* pass ctor args */ );


.... in this example its only 1 extra char to type when
using the factory method and you could turn that around by
doing something evil(tm) like:

$var = Test::_( /* pass ctor args */ ); // '_' is a function name!!! (ala wordpress-CS)

maybe reply to generals describing what you are (trying to) do[ing],
I for one am always interested in other people's realworld php5/oo
problems/ideas/etc :-)

rgds,
Jochem



ps - I redirected this reply to generals because I didn't really think
that it was an internals question (and those guys are busy enough :-)

>
> Thanx

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