Question

For example :

    class User {
        private $sex = 1;

        public function getSex() {
            if($this->sex == 1)
                return __('Male');
            elseif($this->sex == 2)
                return __('Female');
        }
    } 

I believed that it’s better to not use gettext inside class, but I don’t know what can i do in this case.

Answer 1

In PHP it is acceptable to use global functions inside of objects — since most of the built in libraries are global functions anyway, it wouldn’t really make sense for this not to be the case. In this case, since you are using an external library, it actually strikes me as the most prudent approach.

As a side note:

1. getSex() should always return something as a matter of good programming practice, perhaps, in this case, it would be good to have it return __('Unknown'); or __('Other');
2. If you are doing a series of if(a == b){}elseif(a == c){}elseif(a ==d )..., you’re better off using the switch statement.
3. Normally, it is more common that if there is a method getX and there is a private variable x, getX will return something of the same type as x — in this case, both would return a number. This is not necessarily always the case (it’s encapsulated for a reason), but it will help other developers learn the code base better.