Re: How to implement a plugin system?

Hamza Saglam wrote:

Thanks for your response. However I am looking for something a bit more comprehensive :) I could do it as you suggested if I had only a few plugins. As I am going to add loads of plugins over the time, rather than adding all the plugins one by one, could something like a 'loader' class be implemented? What I mean by that is, it will take the requested plugin names (with their own parameters necessary) and load/initialise them. In semi-psuedo-code, it would be something like: foreach plugin suplied as the argument include the plugin initialise it end Perhaps I should change the question to: "Do you think something like this would be efficient and useable? If not what sort of pattern would you follow?"

What you're describing is the Factory pattern, and yes that's the most efficient way to implement plugins. You should never load classes unless you need them - it's a complete waste of time, and definitely not recommended if you're going to have a lot of plugins. I would suggest you name your plugins X_plugin, Y_plugin and Z_plugin (where plugin could be anything) because that adds a level of security. Otherwise you could open yourself up to security issues because the user could instantiate any class in your system. -Stut -- http://stut.net/ > "Borokov Smith" <borokov@gmail.com> wrote in message > news:46B77B4B.9020600@gmail.com... >> Hey Hamza, >> >> require_once($chosenPlugin . '.class.php'); >> >> $obj = new $chosenPlugin(); >> return $obj; >> >> And you can start from there. >> >> hth, >> >> boro >> >> >> >> Hamza Saglam schreef: >>> Hello all, >>> >>> I am working on a project which needs to have some sort of plugins >>> architecture and I am kinda stuck. Basically I want to give a list of >>> items to the user, and according to his/her selection, I want to load >>> relevant functionality into my application. >>> >>> >>> I was thinking of having an abstract plugin class, and have the >>> plugins implement that but then how would I actually load the plugins? >>> Say for instance I want to load plugins X,Y,Z (and lets say i >>> implemented them as [X|Y|Z].class.php) , should I just 'include' (or >>> require) them? Or should I initialize all possible plugins and just >>> pick the ones user has chosen (which sounds a bit pointless as it >>> would load unnecessary stuff)? >>> >>> >>> How would you go about doing something like this? >>> >>> >>> Thanks. >>> >>> >