note 110965 added to function.define

another interesting thing about defining constants in runtime with the namespace path first off i would like to correct a couple mistakes in my previous note 1.- i used "system" instead of "something" in the define 2.- __CLASS__ already gives the name of the class including the namespace, so the __NAMESPACE__ constant in the define is out of place and will not work properly if concatenated like the example ---------------- that said, the interesting thing about defining constants with "namespaced" names its that they are truly behaving nicely with aliases, so we can easily make "constant groups" in a incredibly easy and fashionable way check this code, a realistic case use: <?php namespace Application { class System { public function __construct () { // we get the root path for the application by checking the path of this file then subtracting the number of characters of the php subsystem folder, which is a prerequisite that has an exact name "system" $aux = pathinfo(__FILE__); $aux = str_split ($aux['dirname'], strlen($aux['dirname'])-7); if (isset($aux[1]) && ($aux[1]==='/system')) define(__CLASS__.'\root', $aux[0].'/'); else // someone messed with the system folder name, no can do die("don't touch my names!"); // Let's define some paths pointing to several goodies by combining them with the application's root path define (__CLASS__.'\paths\libraries',\Application\System\root.'lib'); define (__CLASS__.'\paths\includes',\Application\System\root.'inc'); define (__CLASS__.'\paths\javascript',\Application\System\root.'js'); define (__CLASS__.'\paths\images',\Application\System\root.'img'); define (__CLASS__.'\status\initialized',true); define (__CLASS__.'\status\running',true); } } } namespace { $system = new \Application\System(); // let's do a little bit testing echo \Application\System\paths\images, '<br />'; // this was already exposed in the other note use \Application\System as Sys; echo Sys\paths\images, '<br />'; // now it gets interesting, as we are making an alias for something that (theorically) is not a class nor a namespace use \Application\System\paths as Paths; use \Application\System\status as ST; echo Paths\images, '<br />'; // it works! if ( ST\running ) echo "running!"; } ?> which outputs: >/imaginary/path/to/the/domain/www/img >/imaginary/path/to/the/domain/www/img >/imaginary/path/to/the/domain/www/img >running! it can be easily tested and provides quite the alternative to the typical long-named-constants because this way offers not only the same long-named-physical differentiating but also a logical structure to shorten them by using aliases plus they don't really need to follow the same logical structure of the namespaces/classes, so the logical tree for constants can be completely different to the namespaces/classes logical tree okay that explanation was a little bit too messy, what that means is that e.g. you can try to replace "\Application\System" with simply "Config" and the constants will keep working nicely with and without aliases despite not existing a "Config" namespace now it's your turn to get imaginative ---- Server IP: 69.147.83.199 Probable Submitter: 95.18.117.245 ---- Manual Page -- http://php.net/manual/en/function.define.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/110965 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/110965/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/110965/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/110965/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/110965/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/110965/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/110965/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/110965 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/110965 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php