Everything

php

stdClass

php.internals

Jakes

22 years ago

Please can some explain to me what the stdClass is used for in
PHP 5. I've tried to use the reflection API to reverse engineer it
but it does not give you much on the stdClass

What methods can be inherited from this class?

Does it work the same was as the java base class - Object?

Stig S. Bakken

22 years ago

On Fri, 2004-02-27 at 14:15, Jakes wrote:

> Please can some explain to me what the stdClass is used for in
> PHP 5. I've tried to use the reflection API to reverse engineer it
> but it does not give you much on the stdClass
>
> What methods can be inherited from this class?
>
> Does it work the same was as the java base class - Object?

No.  There is no such thing as Java's base class built into PHP.
stdClass is just an empty "dummy class" that is used internally, for
example if you cast an array to an object.  You can also use stdClass if
you need an object of no particular class.

- Stig

Stephan Schmidt

22 years ago

Hi,

> > Please can some explain to me what the stdClass is used for in
> > PHP 5. I've tried to use the reflection API to reverse engineer it
> > but it does not give you much on the stdClass
> No.  There is no such thing as Java's base class built into PHP.
> stdClass is just an empty "dummy class" that is used internally, for
> example if you cast an array to an object.  You can also use
> stdClass if
> you need an object of no particular class.

Just one thing to add:
It has been also available in PHP4.

Stephan

Jakes Potgieter

22 years ago

It would be nice to have a base class to inherit some special
methods as we do in Java. The same as method overloading,
one of the most important aspects missing in PHP5 and the
new object model.

Thanks.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephan Schmidt" <schst@php-tools.net>
Newsgroups: php.internals
To: "'Jakes'" <sunssoffun@hotmail.com>
Cc: <internals@lists.php.net>
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 3:46 PM
Subject: RE: [PHP-DEV] stdClass

Michael Walter

22 years ago

Jakes Potgieter wrote:

> It would be nice to have a base class to inherit some special
> methods as we do in Java. [...]

What would be useful methods contained in the base class?

Hartmut Holzgraefe

22 years ago

Jakes Potgieter wrote:

> It would be nice to have a base class to inherit some special
> methods as we do in Java.

could you name which ones you think of?

being out of the JAVA camp for several years know i no longer
know all java.object methods and properties by heart, but
PHP mechanisms like __sleep()/__wakeup(), __toString() and
the introspection related functions like get_class() and
friends should provide comparable behaviour ...

(IMHO the fact that any object in JAVA can be casted down
to java.object is not that clever after all, and part of it
is only due to the fact that there is no other way to have
portable container classes, which is now finally solved
with generics)

> The same as method overloading,
> one of the most important aspects missing in PHP5 and the
> new object model.

due to the feature of optional parameters you may end up with
more than one overloaded function matching a call signature,
due to the fact that argument types in a function call
are not known at compile time signature matching would have
to happen at runtime,
and the language syntax would need to be extended to add
parameter type specifiers to function parameter declarations
(ok, we already have this one for interfaces ...)

--
Hartmut Holzgraefe  <hartmut@php.net>

Jakes Potgieter

22 years ago

When Im talking about something like this would come in handy
obviously doesnt work! The paramter null could be added, to get
desired result but to be programmatically correct:

class MyOverload{
function __construct($Foo) {
$this->Foo = $Foo;
}
// overload the constructor
function __construct(String $Foo, String $Bar){
$this->Foo = $Foo;
$this->Bar = $Bar;
}
public function doSomething(){
if($this->Foo != null  && $this->Bar == null){
return $this->Foo . " needs a partner";
// do something with Foo
}elseif($this->Foo != null && $this->Bar != null){
return $this->Foo . " and " . $this->Bar . " are partners";    //do
something with Foo and Bar
}
}
private  $Foo;
private  $Bar;
}

$obj = new MyOverload("Mary");
print $obj->doSomething();


----- Original Message -----
From: "Hartmut Holzgraefe" <hartmut@php.net>
To: "Jakes Potgieter" <jakespotgieter@hotmail.com>
Cc: "Stephan Schmidt" <schst@php-tools.net>; <internals@lists.php.net>
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 4:20 PM
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] stdClass

Jakes

22 years ago

Oh, yes and special methods that you mentioned would come in handy too
but from a object perspective. Maybe explicitly calling some sort finalize()
method to clean un-referenced objects would also be handy.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jakes Potgieter" <jakespotgieter@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: php.internals
To: <hartmut@php-groupies.de>
Cc: <internals@lists.php.net>; "Stephan Schmidt" <schst@php-tools.net>
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 4:42 PM
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] stdClass

> When Im talking about something like this would come in handy
> obviously doesnt work! The paramter null could be added, to get
> desired result but to be programmatically correct:
>
> class MyOverload{
>    function __construct($Foo) {
>         $this->Foo = $Foo;
>    }
>    // overload the constructor
>    function __construct(String $Foo, String $Bar){
>          $this->Foo = $Foo;
>          $this->Bar = $Bar;
>    }
>    public function doSomething(){
>         if($this->Foo != null  && $this->Bar == null){
>          return $this->Foo . " needs a partner";
> // do something with Foo
>         }elseif($this->Foo != null && $this->Bar != null){
>          return $this->Foo . " and " . $this->Bar . " are partners";

//do

Michael Walter

22 years ago

Jakes wrote:

> Oh, yes and special methods that you mentioned would come in handy too
> but from a object perspective. Maybe explicitly calling some sort finalize()
> method to clean un-referenced objects would also be handy.

How does that differ from $x=null; with a reference-counting garbage
collector?

Cheers,
Michael

Jakes

22 years ago

You calling it from the base so cleaning you be easier than
looking for object referenced variables and setting them to null.
Working in a large class hierarchy it could get painful.

"Michael Walter" <cm@leetspeak.org> wrote in message
news:403F5A6B.3000405@leetspeak.org...

> Jakes wrote:
> > Oh, yes and special methods that you mentioned would come in handy too
> > but from a object perspective. Maybe explicitly calling some sort

finalize()

Hartmut Holzgraefe

22 years ago

Jakes wrote:

> You calling it from the base so cleaning you be easier than
> looking for object referenced variables and setting them to null.
> Working in a large class hierarchy it could get painful.

__destruct()

and as far as object references in variables are concerned:
the engine destructs all instance member variables when an
object is destructed, so the reference counts of the
referenced objects are already deceremented
no need to free them by hand (this is even true for PHP 4)

you only have to take care of cleanup yourself when you
have circular refence graphs ...

--
Hartmut Holzgraefe  <hartmut@php.net>

Hartmut Holzgraefe

22 years ago

Jakes wrote:

> Oh, yes and special methods that you mentioned would come in handy too
> but from a object perspective. Maybe explicitly calling some sort finalize()
> method to clean un-referenced objects would also be handy.

finalize() is one of the worst concepts of JAVA that i can think of:
a somehow-destructor called at a non-forseeable time in the future
(whenever the garbage collector thread tinks its about time to reclaim
the only resource it is able to monitor: memory)

there are even recommedations not to use it at all ...

--
Hartmut Holzgraefe  <hartmut@php.net>

Michael Walter

22 years ago

Hartmut Holzgraefe wrote:

> Jakes wrote:
>
>> Oh, yes and special methods that you mentioned would come in handy too
>> but from a object perspective. Maybe explicitly calling some sort
>> finalize()
>> method to clean un-referenced objects would also be handy.
>
>
> finalize() is one of the worst concepts of JAVA that i can think of:
> a somehow-destructor called at a non-forseeable time in the future
> (whenever the garbage collector thread tinks its about time to reclaim
> the only resource it is able to monitor: memory)
>
> there are even recommedations not to use it at all ...

Indeed. UNWIND-PROTECT a.k.a. try { .. } finally { .. } in Java or using
() { .. } in C# are usually a much better choice, I think. Similar
problems apply to PHP __destructors, too, anyway (mainly the
non-derminism of cleanup), probably those should be used with similar
care ;-)

Cheers,
Michael