Question

The following is an excerpt from some code I wrote to assign the $user->privilege based on a method from that same class. It seems excessively repetitive, and I am wondering if there is something I can do to make it more readable — given that I haven’t seen this kind of repetition too much in codes I have looked at.

$user -> privileges = $user -> get_privileges ( $user -> username );

Answer 1

It doesn’t look particularly repetitious to me, but it is a little unusual to be assigning an object’s property based on a method outside the class. Instead, this might be better handled inside the object constructor, eliminating the need for you to remember to set the property when coding:

class User {
    public $username;
    public $privileges;

    public function __construct() {
      // setup the user however that's done...

      // And assign privileges in the constructor
      $this->privileges = $this->get_privileges();
    }

    // In get_privilegs, rather than passing the username property,
    // just access it via $this->username.
    // Unless you need to use this method from time to time outside the class, it can be private
    private function get_privileges() {
      // Get privs for $this->username
    }
}

And as an alternative to $this->privileges = $this->get_privileges(); called in the constructor, you might just set $this->privileges inside the get_privileges() method. Then you can just call it as $this->get_privileges() in the constructor, no assignment necessary. Either way works.