Re: class? package?

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 12:02 PM, Larry Garfield <larry@garfieldtech.com> wrote: > On Tuesday 10 June 2008, Shelley wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > If you are designing with OO principles, could you give an explanation of > > what is the difference classes and packages? > > > > Several principles talks about classes and packages, such as: > > The classes in a package are reused together. If you reuse one of the > > classes in a package, you reuse them all. > > > > but few explains the difference between them. > > > > When I was summarizing the OO principles, that question confused me: > > > > http://phparch.cn/index.php/php/43-php-advanced-programming/170-principles- > >of-object-oriented-design > > > > Thanks in advance. :) > > A class is a syntactic way of grouping behavior and data together in an > encapsulated fashion (at least that's the PHP definition). > > A formal package is a syntactic way of grouping related classes together, > either for easier distribution, somewhat tighter coupling, or syntactic > sugar. For instance, you could have 5 classes that make up your "Database > abstraction" package; they're all discrete, but all work in concert. > > PHP does not have a syntactic "package" concept. The closest thing would > be > namespaces as implemented in PHP 5.3, but that's not out yet. Many systems > emulate packages with verbose class naming (eg, Database_Connection, > Database_Query, Database_Transaction, Database_Query_Select, etc.), but I > personally find that ugly. :-) > > Thank you very much for the explanation. I think I got some. Maybe I am already using them: I am working on a sns site, and now my practice is grouping classes of a function (i.e. subscription) together. When I need it, just load the "package": subscription. Right? ;) -- Regards, Shelley