You can’t put two __construct functions with unique argument signatures in a PHP class. I’d like to do this:
class Student { protected $id; protected $name; // etc. public function __construct($id){ $this->id = $id; // other members are still uninitialized } public function __construct($row_from_database){ $this->id = $row_from_database->id; $this->name = $row_from_database->name; // etc. } }
What is the best way to do this in PHP?
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Answer
I’d probably do something like this:
<?php class Student { public function __construct() { // allocate your stuff } public static function withID( $id ) { $instance = new self(); $instance->loadByID( $id ); return $instance; } public static function withRow( array $row ) { $instance = new self(); $instance->fill( $row ); return $instance; } protected function loadByID( $id ) { // do query $row = my_awesome_db_access_stuff( $id ); $this->fill( $row ); } protected function fill( array $row ) { // fill all properties from array } } ?>
Then if i want a Student where i know the ID:
$student = Student::withID( $id );
Or if i have an array of the db row:
$student = Student::withRow( $row );
Technically you’re not building multiple constructors, just static helper methods, but you get to avoid a lot of spaghetti code in the constructor this way.