Question

I noticed that if I declare a function inside a class method that has the same name as a outside function I get a error:

function a(){
  ...
}

class foo{
  public function init(){
    function a(){  // <- error
    ...    
    }
    ...
  }

}

this however would work:

function a(){
  ...
}

class foo{
  public static function a(){
    ...
  }
}

Can I include a set of functions that act as static methods for this class using require_once or something like that?

require_once('file.php'); after class foo{ doesn’t work…

Answer 1

If your class structure allows, you can split the class into several different classes which are part of an inheritance chain:

class foo1 {
    public static function a() {}
}
class foo extends foo1 {
    public static function b() {}
}

Alternatively, you can use __callStatic() if you are willing to take the performance hit. (Requires PHP 5.3; though if you only need non-static methods, __call is available from 5.0.) Smarty 3 does this IIRC.

class foo {
    private static $parts = array('A', 'B');
    public static __callStatic($name, $arguments) {
        foreach (self::$parts as $part) {
            if (method_exists($part, $name)) {
                return call_user_func_array(array($part, $name), $arguments);
            }
        }
        throw new Exception();
    }
}
class A {
    public static function a() {}
}
class B {
    public static function b() {}
}

PHP 5.4 will supposedly include traits, which are a more straightforward way of including external code in a class:

class foo {
    use A, B;
}
trait A {
    public static function a() {}
}
trait B {
    public static function b() {}
}