to covertka at muohio dot edu and pillepop2003 at yahoo dot de:
There's a much easier solution to getting a class' name for working with a factory function. Let's assume you're doing something like this:
<?php
function FactoryFunction($whatever, $instancedata) {
switch ($whatever) {
case 'stuff' : return new Stuff($instancedata);
case 'otherstuff' : return new Otherstuff($instancedata);
}
}
?>
Now, consider the named parameter idiom and remember that PHP uses hashes for everything; as a result make the following changes:
<?php
function FactoryFunction($whatever, $instancedata) {
switch ($whatever) {
case 'stuff' : return array('typeis'=>'stuff', 'instance'=>new Stuff($instancedata));
case 'otherstuff' : return array('typeis'=>'otherstuff', 'instance'=>new Otherstuff($instancedata));
}
}
?>
Nice 'n simple. It seems that what the original poster wanted was something like C++ static data members; unfortunately as PHP4 has no static variables at all, there would need to be significant language change to support static-like behavior. If you move to PHP5, the static keyword solves your problem cleanly.
