On 2011-08-14, Derick Rethans <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Aug 2011, Ferenc Kovacs wrote:
> > I would like to introduce this RFC which would provide function
> > autoloading through the spl_autoload facility without userland BC
> > breakage.
> >
> > https://wiki.php.net/rfc/autofunc
>
> I understand the proposal, but I don't see any compelling reasons in the
> RFC of why we actually need autoloading for functions? For classes it
> makes sense because there is almost always a class to file mapping. For
> functions (and constants) that is not the case, so I am wondering how
> useful this function autoloading actually is.
Namespaces support the following code types:
* Constants
* Functions
* Classes and Interfaces
Currently, autoloading in PHP allows us to dynamically identify and load
only classes and interfaces. However, not all code is written using OOP.
If a developer doesn't want to dive into include/require(_once) hell in
order to use their namespaced functions and/or constants, they have no
real options.
As an example, let's say I've created a procedural CMS or blog of some
sort. In there, I have a file like this:
<?php
namespace MyProjectName\Posts;
$entries = getEntries(date('Y'));
foreach ($entries as $entry) {
displayEntrySummary($entry);
}
Next, assume the "getEntries" and "displayEntriesSummary" functions are
also in the namespace "MyProjectName\Posts". How does my code load those
functions?
Traditionally, we've used:
include_once 'MyProjectName/Posts/functions.php';
or
include_once __DIR__ . '/functions.php';
in our files. But why should we have to do that? Why are functions --
which make up the bulk of PHP's functionality, and which are the
bread-and-butter of many PHP projects -- get second-class status when it
comes to autoloading?
I can see an autoloader like this:
function autoloadFunctions($funcname, $type = SPL_AUTOLOAD_FUNCTION)
{
if (!strstr($funcname, '\\')) {
// we won't deal with un-namespaced functions
return false;
}
$namespace = substr($funcname, 0, strrpos($funcname, '\\'));
$funcfile = str_replace('\\', DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, $namespace)
. DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'Functions.php';
return include_once($funcfile);
}
and that might autoload all functions in a given namespace. I've seen
other projects that put a function per-file -- so those might become
even more granular.
Basically, I don't see why we _wouldn't_ want this functionality in PHP.
It makes namespaces practical and useful for procedural applications.
--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
Project Lead | [email protected]
Zend Framework | http://framework.zend.com/
PGP key: http://framework.zend.com/zf-matthew-pgp-key.asc
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