Question

I just started doing OOP, so I apologize in advance if there is a simple solution.
Basically I need to use my $mysqli object inside a class. I’ve seperated it into two files.

config2.php

class Config
{

    public $host = 'localhost';
    public $username = '****';
    public $password = '****';
    public $database = '****';

    function report_error($query)
    {
        $email = '*@hotmail.com';
        $subject = 'MySQL error.';
        $message = "IP: {$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']} \n URL: http://{$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']}{$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']} \n\n MySQL query: {$query} \n\n MySQL error: " . $mysqli->error();

        mail($email, $subject, $message);
        die('Oops, an error has occured. The administrator has been notified.');
    }

}

$config = new Config();
$mysqli = new mysqli($config->host, $config->username, $config->password, $config->database);

if($mysqli->connect_error)
    report_error($mysqli);

administration.php

require('includes/config2.php');

$mysqli->real_escape_string();   // Works out of scope.

class Account
{
    public $username = $mysqli->real_escape_string();   // Doesn't work in scope.
    public $password;

    function login()
    {

    }
}

Thanks for the help guys, I appreciate it :).

Answer 1

You should pass the object to the constructor of Account and save it as a private instance variable.

Account is directly dependent on an instance of mysqli, so there is nothing wrong with making that clear by specifying it as a required parameter in the constructor. That is the only way you can make sure that whenever Account is used the mysqli object is there too. If you access it from a global state instead (by either having a static accessor or by directly accessing the global scope) you can never guarantee that it is really there.