Opinions sought on the best way to organise classes in PHP

Question

Question by jax

jax

I am pretty much set on using the Java package naming convention of

com.website.app.whatever

but am unsure about the best way of doing this in PHP.

Option 1:

Create a directory structure

com/
    mysite/
          myapp/
               encryption/
                         PublicKeyGenerator.class.php
                         Cipher.class.php
               Xml/
                         XmlHelper.class.php
                         XmlResponse.class.php

Now this is how Java does it, it uses the folders to organize the heirarchy. This is however a little clumsy in PHP because there is no native support for it and when you move things around you break all includes.

Option 2

Name classes using a periods for the package, therefore names are just like in Java but can all be in the same directory making __autoload a breeze.

classes/
        com.mysite.myapp.encription.PublicKeyGenerator.class.php
        com.mysite.myapp.encription.Cipher.class.php
        com.mysite.myapp.xml.XmlHelper.class.php
        com.mysite.myapp.xml.XmlResponse.class.php

The only real disadvantage here is that all the classes are in a single folder which might be confusing for large projects.

Opinions sought, which is the best or are there other even better options?

Answer 1

Answer by allenskd

allenskd

You could follow Zend Framework standards like

Option1 with autoload

new App_Encryption_Cipher

in autoload magic callback replace the _ to ‘/’ and do further checking (the file exists? garbage in the filename being seek? symbols?)

This is however a little clumsy in PHP because there is no native support for it and when >> you move things around you break all includes.

Depends on how you plan/design your application. there is no escape when it comes to refactoring anyway 🙂

I know you are used to java naming conventions, but if you do something like (new com_mysite_myapp_encryption_cypher) well, it kinda becomes a pain to write all the time

Answer 2

Answer by Starx

Starx

I would suggest Option 1, because in that layout in particular is the separation of codes, which will end up as a much manageable and flexible system.