Is it a good idea and reliable to branch out on the php version number?

Question

I'm working on some new components in my framework for a gettext implementation. It needs to support the dead php4 and php5+. I'm using Zend_Translate and I will implement a gettext based class for php4.

I'm wondering if it's ok to rely on the phpversion function to branch out on which class to implement. Something like...

$version = phpversion();
define('VERSION', grabVersion($version) ); // grab major version

if ( VERSION >= 5 ) {
   $local = new Zend_Translate();
} else {
   $local = new Gettext();
}

Both classes have a _ function to do the translations, so the rest should be the same.

<label for="first_name"><?php echo $local->_("First Name");?></label>

Is it common to do so in any of the major php frameworks, would you do something similar if you were forced to support the dead PHP4?

Answer 1

If I was going to implement this across PHP versions, I would rely on the version number too. So what you're proposing seems perfectly sane and acceptable.

Answer 2

I think getting the version number is a good idea, but it should be implicit so it's not called out of the blue.

$local = TranslateFactory::create();
$local->_("translate me");

class TranslateFactory {
 private static $_translator; 
 private static function _getTranslator() {
  if(empty(self::$_translator)) {
   // get php version
   // if-case here
   self::$_translator = // result your if-case
  }
  return self::$_translator;
 }
 public static function create() {
  return _getTranslator();
 }
}

That provides a per-request cache at least. The _getTranslator() could even fetch object from a longer lasting cache if you'd need it, just by putting the logic in that one spot fetching your real object.

Answer 3

It's not a terrible idea to branch on a php version number, but I would prefer something like this:

if(class_exists("Zend_Translate")) {
   $local = new Zend_Translate();
} else if(class_exists("Gettext")) {
   $local = new Gettext();
} else {
   throw new Exception("No supported translation helper found");
}

If you wanted to, you could make it more dynamic:

$translators = array(
    "Zend_Translate",
    "Gettext",
    "FooTranslate",
);
$local = null;

foreach($translators as $t) {
    if(class_exists($t)) {
        $local = new $t();
        break;
    }
}

if($local === null) {
    throw new Exception("No supported translation helper found");
}

A better place to branch based on version, is error handling - above I use exceptions, which are not available in PHP4 :)