Question

I want to load data to an instance of an object using its constructor and I write

$this->property=$row["colname"] 

each time for each property.

the mysql_fetch_object function fetches the data as an object but I am not sure if the instance of an object can be assigned to some object from inside. othwerwise I would use

__construct($object) { $this=$object; } //doesn't give any syntax error

Maybe I should look into iteration of properties and use

foreach($object as $key => $value) $value=$object[$key];

or can I assign like

$this=$object;

within the constructor?

Answer 1

You can’t assign anything to $this, or you’ll get an error.

I would do something like this:

class SomeObject 
{
    function __construct($base = null)
    {
        if ($base != null)
        {
            $this->load($base);
        }

        // continue construction as you normally would
    }

    function load($object)
    {
        foreach ($object as $key => $value)
        {
            $this->$key = $value;
        }
    }
}

Then you have the option of load the array into the object at construction time, or after construction via load().

---

Usage example:

$rows = array('id' => 1, 'name' => 'Foo');

// create an empty SomeObject instance
$obj = new SomeObject();
var_dump($obj);

// load $rows into the object
$obj->load($rows);
var_dump($obj);

// create an instance of SomeObject based on $rows
$rows2 = array('id' => 2, 'name' => 'Bar');

$obj2 = new SomeObject($rows2);
var_dump($obj2);

Demo: http://codepad.org/uV7bOrfL