Question

My aim is to retrieve some data from a global array which is defined in another PHP file. My code is running inside database.php file and the array I want to use is inside config.php file. I understand that accessing a global array inside class is not a good idea, but I want to do it so because of some reasons.

My code is as below:

config.php

$CONFIG = array();
// ...
$CONFIG["DATABASE"] = array();
$CONFIG["DATABASE"]["USERNAME"] = "user";
$CONFIG["DATABASE"]["PASSWORD"] = "pass";
$CONFIG["DATABASE"]["HOSTNAME"] = "127.0.0.1";
$CONFIG["DATABASE"]["DATABASE"] = "my_db";
// ...

database.php

require('config.php');

class Database
{
    protected   $m_Link;
    private     $m_User;
    private     $m_Pass;
    private     $m_Host;
    private     $m_Data;
    private     $m_bConnected;

    public function __construct()
    {
        global $CONFIG;
        $this->m_User = $CONFIG["DATABASE"]["USERNAME"];
        $this->m_Pass = $CONFIG["DATABASE"]["PASSWORD"];
        $this->m_Host = $CONFIG["DATABASE"]["HOSTNAME"];
        $this->m_Data = $CONFIG["DATABASE"]["DATABASE"];
        $this->m_bConnected = false;
        $this->Connect();
    }

    // ...
};

There is no error given (except for the failed database connection notification).

I can’t access to the array elements. For instance $CONFIG["DATABASE"]["USERNAME"] returns an empty value even though it was initialized with "user" string in the config.php.

How should I modify my code so that it can this global array can be accessible inside the class constructor?

(Note: PHP version is 5.3.0)

Answer 1

Your code looks right, so I think you should just debug it. Try to output $CONFIG before creating instance of Database class, $CONFIG may be redefined/changed somewhere in your code. And don’t just check one value in array – output whole array with var_dump/print_r.