Question

In PHP I need to pass some arguments to a function by reference.
I don’t want to write 2 different methods for similar behaviour.
So i need to select behaviour by argument.
But I can’t pass null by reference.
So I created a dummy array.

So i run it either by

    $temp[0]=-1;
    $this->doSomething($bigIds, $temp);
or
    $temp[0]=-1;
    $this->doSomething($temp, $smallIds);


public function doSomething(&$bigIds, &$smallIds) {
        if ($bigIds[0] != -1) {
             // make some thing
        }
        if ($smallIds[0] != -1) {
             // make some thing
        }
}

Is there a better/ elegant way to do this?

Answer 1

I would suggest an enum but this is PHP. So this should do it for you:

class YourClass
{
    const DoSomethingSmall = 0;
    const DoSomethingBig = 1;

    public function doSomething(&$ids, $actionType) {
        // can also use a switch here
        if($actionType == self::DoSomethingSmall) {
            // do small
        }
        else if($actionType == self::DoSomethingBig) {
            // do big
        }
    }
}

Then you can do:

$this->doSomething($bigIds, self::DoSomethingBig);
$this->doSomething($smallIds, self::DoSomethingSmall);

From outside the class you can use YourClass::DoSomethingBig and YourClass::DoSomethingSmall