Re: public readonly variables

On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 6:19 AM, Richard Quadling <rquadling@googlemail.com>wrote: > On 23 April 2010 10:55, Ashley Sheridan <ash@ashleysheridan.co.uk> wrote: > > I know the subject line might sound a bit like an oxymoron, but bear > > with me! > > > > What I'd like to have is a property of an object that behaves like a > > public variable when it comes to reading, but like a protected one when > > it comes to writing, as it would make my code a lot easier to read. > > > > I know about the __get($var) method to magically provide this behaviour, > > but from all I've read it can be pretty slow compared to a regular > > public variable. I've seen a thread on the dev lists where someone > > requested it, but can't find anything in the manual. > > > > Does anyone know if this is available in a later version of PHP, or if > > it's implementation is penned for some time in the future? > > > > Thanks, > > Ash > > http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk > > > > > > > > What you are asking for is commonly known as accessibility. This has > been discussed on the list and is something I think would be a great > feature. > > http://wiki.php.net/rfc/propertygetsetsyntax is an incomplete > RFC (it > says it is incomplete at the top). > > The last update was 2010/01/08 22:11, so a few months old. > > Hopefully, some of the clever brains here can get to grips with it and > come to some consensus. > > > Whilst you can easily code __get()/__set() or getVar()/setVar() > methods to deal with it, with the later ones being significantly > easier to docblock, there is no easy way to document the property, > only the methods to set or get the property. > > > Richard. > > > > > > > -- > ----- > Richard Quadling > "Standing on the shoulders of some very clever giants!" > EE : http://www.experts-exchange.com/M_248814.html > EE4Free : http://www.experts-exchange.com/becomeAnExpert.jsp > Zend Certified Engineer : > http://zend.com/zce.php?c=ZEND002498&r=213474731 > ZOPA : http://uk.zopa.com/member/RQuadling > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > > I've sometimes implemented a scheme where I create the variable, then unset it in the constructor and rely on the magic method. I know you were concerned about the performance of magic methods, and I don't have a solution for that :( For example: <?php /** * Description of PHPClass that documents nicely and still protects variables from reassignment. * * @author Adam Richardson */ class PHPClass { /** * Name for object. * @var String */ public $name; /** * Size of something really important. * @var int */ public $size; /** * Local storage of magic vars * @var array */ private $_vars = array(); /** * Create object and initialize instance vars. * @param array $instance_vars */ function __construct(array $instance_vars) { unset($this->name); unset($this->size); $this->_vars = $instance_vars; } function __get($name) { return $this->_vars[$name]; } } $obj = new PHPClass($instance_vars = array('name' => 'Billy', 'size' => 1000)); echo $obj->name; ?> Adam -- Nephtali: PHP web framework that functions beautifully http://nephtaliproject.com