Re: "Namespace polution" in includes

if you use a Unix OS you could solve that problem simply by renaming your directories to lower case. If not and your case is critical, here is your "require_pear" function: function require_pear($file) { $old = ini_set('include_path', $path_to_pear); require_once $file; ini_set('include_path', $old); } Tomas V.V.Cox Sebastian Delmont wrote: > > One thing I really don't like about the existing PEAR standards is the way > it poludes the include path. > > Please correct me if I'm wrong, since I don't have much experience using > PEAR. > > Currently, PEAR uses an "installation dir" where it places all it's files > and directories (PHP's "lib" dir, for example), and assumes that directory > is included on the "include_path". > > So, if I want to use the "DB" module, I have to do > require 'DB.php'; > And if I want to use the "Mail/sendmail" module, > require 'Mail/sendmail.php'; > > But what happens if, for some reason, I already had an "Mail" directory on > my website, with a "sendmail.php" page inside it. And those files were > completely unrelated to PEAR... those are "regular pages", to say something. > Well, depending on my current include_path, I will not be able to use the > PEAR Mail/sendmail module. And the bigger PEAR gets, the worse this problem > becomes, since there will be many more filenames that can collide. > > Currently, I have two choices to overcome this problem. Put PEAR as the > first item on my include_path, but this means I can't include my own files > if they collide with PEAR names. Or I can put PEAR as the last item on my > include_path, but if I pick the wrong name for my files, then I can't use > some PEAR modules. > > Either case means I have to be careful about how I name my files and > directories. But even then I can get in trouble if I get a new PEAR module, > or upgrade PHP, since it can contain newer files I didn't take into account > when creating my site. > > Simply put, placing all PEAR files directly "on the top" of the include_path > is a big mistake. > > I see two solutions that can even be used in parallel: > > - place PEAR inside a directory so includes would look like > require 'PEAR/HTTP/Compress.php'; > > - Add some specialized mechanism to PHP for PEAR includes like: > require_pear 'HTTP/Compress.php'; > or > require <HTTP/Compress.php>; > or > require 'pear:HTTP/Compress.php'; > > Again, I'm coming late to PEAR, and this might have been discussed before. > But unless I'm terribly wrong, this is a serious issue that has to be > solved. > > Right now, I can't use PEAR directly because of this problem. I have > resorted to the "PEAR subdirectory" solution, and modified all modules that > I needed to use to use the "longer" include path. > > -- > PEAR Development Mailing List (http://pear.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, e-mail: pear-dev-unsubscribe@lists.php.net > For additional commands, e-mail: pear-dev-help@lists.php.net > To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net