Question

This is a very basic php question : suppose I have 3 files, file1, file2, file3.

In file1 I declare a class called Object. In file2, I have a method that instantiate Object, call it $object, and call this method Method

In file2, this method looks like

public function Method(){
$object = new Object;
...
require_once(file3);
$anotherobject = new AnotherObject;
$anotherobject->method();

}

Finally, in file 3 I declare another AnotherObject. So, if I have a method ‘method’ in file3, can I refer to $object’s properties directly, or could I access ony the static method of Object ?

Answer 1

This is not how decent OOp should be programmed. Give each class its own file. As I understand it you have 3 files with classes in them and want to use a the instantiated objects. Use Dependency Injection to construct classes that depend on each other.

Example:

file1.php:

class Object
{
   public function SomeMethod()
   {
      // do stuff
   }
}

file2.php, uses instantiated object:

class OtherObject
{
   private $object;

   public function __construct(Object $object)
   {
      $this->object = $object;
   }

   // now use any public method on object
   public AMethod()
   {
      $this->object->SomeMethod();
   }
}

file3.php, uses multiple instantiated objects:

class ComplexObject
{
   private $object;
   private $otherobject;

   public function __construct(Object $object, OtherObject $otherobject)
   {
      $this->object = $object;
      $this->otherobject = $otherobject;
   }
}

Tie all this together in a bootstrap file or some kind of program file:

program.php:

// with no autoloader present:
include_once 'file1.php';
include_once 'file2.php';
include_once 'file3.php';

$object = new Object();
$otherobject = new OtherObject( $object );

$complexobject = new ComplexObject( $object, $otherobject );