Re: Looking for info on Pear concepts and classes

On Fri, 27 Jul 2001 22:48:40 +0200, giancarlo pinerolo wrote: >I've been made volunteer to write down a paper about PEAR concepts and >classes. Cool! >That article started to clarify me some concepts, but other remain in >the darkness, for example about the 'factory' , what the 'destructor' , >the installer, etc. The factory set's up some drivers (database interface etc.) for a class. It is controlled by some parameters, the user passes to the class (e.g. which database he wants to use). The destructor is a function that is executed, when the script has finished (in contradiction to the constructor, that is called, when the class is initialized). The installer is currently in developement stage. Once it is finished it will provide different ways to download the PEAR components from pear.php.net and to install them on your local machine. This will be possible via a binary file (executed on shell, by a cron job or sth like this) or via your browser with the web installer. >There is something that I need to know also about the licensing scheme. >As you download PEAR with your PHP distribution, what can you do with >the classes present there? Currently all the classes, you can find in php4/pear, are licensed under the PHP License. That means that you can use them in commercial and non-commercial projects without having to pay for it ;-). (Using PEAR::DB is the same than using mysql_connect(), substr() or fopen() or ...) The PEAR components in /pear (the "new" repository) do not have to be under the PHP License, but should be under a license that allows using them in non- and in commercial projects (like GPL). - Martin