Question

Is this the only way to have arrays as constants in php or is this bad code:

class MyClass
{
    private static $myArray = array('test1','test2','test3');

    public static function getMyArray()
    {
       return self::$myArray;
    } 
}

Answer 1

Your code is fine – arrays cannot be declared constant in PHP before version 5.6, so the static approach is probably the best way to go. You should consider marking this variable as constant via a comment:

/** @const */
private static $myArray = array(...);

With PHP 5.6.0 or newer, you can declare arrays constant:

const myArray = array(...);