RE: [PHP] Re: oo question

> > One personal suggestion: you could directly put the code from > > initialize_customer() into the constructor. > > but i'm thinking that i might, at some point, want to use that method > after the object has been instantiated. i can't think of a specific > case, but i'm only imagining that it's possible. It could be useful when retrieving real data is expensive. I've been recently working with a data set that is derived from a highly-relational database served over HTTP via XML. It's time consuming to pull new information about a record and not all information is used everywhere, so I've been using a structure similar to yours with a lazy-load component -- the data source isn't actually accessed for a particular piece of information until that piece of information is specifically requested. In the example below, properties one and two might refer to linked or nested objects, each with a high cost of retrieval. The database access code that is now in your initialize_customer() method gets split up into logical chunks, and placed in the property_*() methods. Paraphrased/contrived example: class thing { var $id; var $property_one; var $property_two; function thing($id) { $this->id = $id; } function get_property_one() { if(!$this->property_one) { // perform request for property one, // set $this->property_one } return $this->property_one; } function get_property_two() { if(!$this->property_two) { // perform request for property two, // set $this->property_two } return $this->property_two; } } --------------------------------------------------------------------- michal migurski- contact info and pgp key: sf/ca http://mike.teczno.com/contact.html