Re: Class not used as an object (Scope Resolution Operator)

On 9 June 2011 22:42, George Langley <george.langley@shaw.ca> wrote: >        Hi all. Am fixing some inherited code, and the previous coder created a class, ie: > > class myClass { >        function &doThis($passedVar) { >                doSomething; >        } > >        function &doThat($anotherVar) { >                doSomethingElse; >        } > } > > BUT, I don't see anywhere where he created an object, ie: > > $myObject = new myClass(); > > or > > $myObject = myClass::doThis("value"); > >        Instead, it's only ever just called directly with a "Scope Resolution > Operator", ie: > > myClass::doThis("valueOne"); > myClass::doThat($whatever); > myClass::doThis("valueTwo"); > myClass::doThat($andSoOn); > >        It seems that this would be making an object, and then destroying it again, on each > of the four calls above, which I would think would be wasteful - time, memory, cpu usage, etc. >        The class has no constants or variables (properties) for any need for persistence, > and is just a collection of functions (methods), so I don't see a reason to group them into a > class - they could all reside as independent functions within the php file. >        Is this good? Is there some advantage to making a non-persistent class? >        Thanks! Take a look at http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.static.php Static methods are quite useful. An instance is not created and destroyed. Just the static method is called without any instance being used. In the most basic sense, a class with only static methods could be just a library of unrelated functions and the class is really just a namespace for these functions. -- Richard Quadling Twitter : EE : Zend : PHPDoc @RQuadling : e-e.com/M_248814.html : bit.ly/9O8vFY : bit.ly/lFnVea