Re: PEAR and interfaces

David Coallier wrote: > Hey all, sorry if this is repeatitive, and if it is please point me to > the good documentation but I was wondering if it was ever discussed > before. The use of interface and it's structure in pear. > > Currently what I have done is something like this (package: > Path_MainPackage) > > Path_MainPackage: > > Interface: > -------------------- > interface Path_MainPackage_Interface { } > -------------------- > > > MainPackage class: > ----------------------- > require_once 'Path/MainPackage/interface/MainPackageInterface.php'; > class Path_MainPackage implements Path_MainPackage_Interface { } > ----------------------- > > Let me know if this is the good structure used for PEAR or what shoudl > be used if it is not. Hi, There has been a great deal of debate on how best to do this. I think that it may be better to require an I prefix. Why? "Interface" can mean more than just the language construct (think of user interface, etc.). This means there is actually some unintended ambiguity here. It is a recognized practice in other languages to simply prepend I, so that we get: Path/MainPackage/IWhatItDoes.php as in PEAR2/IRegistry.php (PEAR2_IRegistry interface) or PhpDocumentor2/Converter/IOutput.php (PhpDocumentor2_Converter_IOutput interface) Both of the examples are hypothetical, btw. I was not in favor of this until I started implementing a few interfaces, and I have become convinced after using them that this is far clearer for code organization. Any discussion is welcome, of course. Greg