Question

I feel bad about mixing arrays with objects, but I’m not sure that I should.

// Populate array
foreach($participants as $participant){
   $participants[$key]['contestant'] = new Contestant($participant);
   $participants[$key]['brand'] = new Brand($brand);
   $key++;
}

[...]

// Print array
foreach($participants as $participant){
   print "Name: " . $participant['contestant']->name;
   print "Nationality: " . $participant['contestant']->nationality;
}

I’m not comfortable about the $contestant['contestant']->name part. I’d feel better about using objects exclusively.

Is it in fact considered bad practice to mix objects and arrays, or am I obsessing over something that everyone else thinks is fine?

Answer 1

It feels fine to me. Where an array makes sense, use an array. Where an object makes sense, use an object.

However, maybe you feel that a participant makes more sense as an object, which, looking at this relatively small code sample, it just may. If so, write up a quick Participant class. If that feels like too much overhead, then don’t worry about it. At this point, it’s personal preference, since your code, does, in fact, work. It’s all about which codebase you would prefer to be working with in the future.