Question

I am currently creating a class to handle all my form data which will then be placed into a database for future use.

Currently in my class constructor I am using the isset() function on an individual basis when I construct my variables from POST.

function __construct()
    {
            if (isset($_POST['first_name']))
            {
                 $this->first_name = $_POST['first_name'];
            }
            else
            {
                 $this->first_name = "NULL";
            }

    }

Although this example is just for one variable, I am doing this for another 12 in my php application.

As the old adage says “You cannot repeat code”.

So I am trying to create a member function in my class that will be able to handle all variables, like a get/set function.

So that in my constructor all I need to do is this:

function __construct()
    {
            //first parameter is the member variable to be set, second parameter is the element name that the value will be POST from
           $firstname = $this->setter($firstname, "first_name");

    }

//what do I put here?
    function setter(first parameter, second parameter)
        {
                //checks the post variable has been set
                if ( isset($_POST[second_parameter]))
                return $_POST['second_parameter'];  
                else
                return "NULL";

        }

Can someone point me in the right direction, or with a code sample.

The aspect I am not sure about is how do I set the function to handle two parameters with a generic handle?

Thanks!

Answer 1

first of all, this is a sytax error (I guess you know)

function setter(first parameter, second parameter)

also, this should issue an warning and lead to other behavior than what you want

isset($_POST[second_parameter]

you are using an undefined constant that after the warning evaluates to the string “second_parameter”, you should use the variable

also, here you are using a string and not a variable:

return $_POST['second_parameter']; 

another problem is the fact that you return the values, and you don’t set them as members in your class

 if ( isset($_POST[second_parameter]))
                return $_POST['second_parameter'];  
                else
                return "NULL";

so maybe something like

function setter($first_parameter, $second_parameter)
{
        //checks the post variable has been set
        if ( isset($_POST[$second_parameter]))
        {
            $this->$first_parameter = $_POST[$second_parameter];  
        }
        else
        {
            $this->$first_parameter = NULL;
        }
}

might be closer to what you need