<?php
namespace test;
class Exception {}
$a = new Exception('hi');
?>
The above code works just fine.
Yes there is a concept. import is best used within a namespace. So,
namespace your code and there is no need to import global classes.
Yep, it works if your whole application uses one namespace, but what if you have a core package that defines some exceptions and another package, with a different namespace, that wants to use the core exceptions? Like
namespace App;
class Exception extends Exception { ... }
and in another File:
namespace App::Db;
import App::Exception;
....
This doesn't work. And worse: imagine PEAR would bring a PEAR::Exception along, PEAR would be my basic framework and i wouldn't care about ::Exception, i don't even know it's there - i am using PEAR. In every Script i would like to use PEAR::Exception in a convenient way i have to write:
<?php
import ::Exception AS WTF;
import PEAR::Exception;
?>
(Nevermind if this example doesn't fit the PEAR-idea, just s/PEAR/randomFramework/g then)
You think this makes sense?
Or what about this:
pear/Mail_IMAP/IMAP.php (dunno if this file exists):
<?php
namespace PEAR::Mail::IMAP;
import ::Exception AS WTF;
import PEAR::Exception;
class Imap {
...
}
All this seems just wrong to me, sorry. And i fully agree with Markus:
But how to know in advance, e.g. think about other libraries, which
public classes possibly exist? Isn't this problematic then?
Let's say i PEAR would have namespaces and there is a class PEAR::DB::Mysql, i use this class as:
<?php
import PEAR::DB::Mysql;
class MyDb extends Mysql {
...
}
And surprisingly someday mysqlnd declares a class named "Mysql", that would break my code even though i explicitly declared that i want "PEAR::DB::Mysql" not some different Mysql class that comes from some fancy extension the admin added today.
So, why this behaviour?
regards,
Benjamin