PHP and Enums

Question

I know that PHP doesn't have native Enumerations. But I have become accustomed to them from the Java world. I would love to use enums as a way to give predefined values which IDEs' auto completion features could understand.

Constants do the trick, but there's the namespace collision problem and (or actually because) they're global. Arrays don't have the namespace problem, but they're too vague, they can be overwritten at runtime and IDEs rarely (never?) know how to autofill their keys.

Are there any solutions/workarounds you commonly use? Does anyone recall whether the PHP guys have had any thoughts or decisions around enums?

Answer 1

The most common solution that I have seen to enum's in PHP has been to create a generic enum class and then extend it. You might take a look at this.

UPDATE: Alternatively, I found this from phpclasses.org.

Answer 2

I used classes with constants:

class Enum {
    NAME       = 'aaaa';
    SOME_VALUE = 'bbbb';
}

print Enum::NAME;

Answer 3

What about class constants?

<?php

class YourClass
{
    const SOME_CONSTANT = 1;

    public function echoConstant()
    {
        echo self::SOME_CONSTANT;
    }
}

echo YourClass::SOME_CONSTANT;

$c = new YourClass;
$c->echoConstant();

Answer 4

I use something like the following:

class DaysOfWeek
{
    const Sunday = 0;
    const Monday = 1;
    // etc.
}

var $today = DaysOfWeek::Sunday;

Answer 5

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/macsploitation/enums-in-php-a-native-implementation-25228

Answer 6

http://www.whitewashing.de/blog/articles/120

Answer 7

The article posted by andy.gurin helped me a lot. Thanks for that!

Answer 8

If you need to use enums that are globally unique (i.e. even when comparing elements between different Enums) and are easy to use, feel free to use the following code. I also added some methods that I find useful. You will find examples in the comments at the very top of the code.

<?php

/**
 * Class Enum
 * 
 * @author Christopher Fox <[email protected]>
 *
 * @version 1.0
 *
 * This class provides the function of an enumeration.
 * The values of Enum elements are unique (even between different Enums)
 * as you would expect them to be.
 *
 * Constructing a new Enum:
 * ========================
 *
 * In the following example we construct an enum called "UserState"
 * with the elements "inactive", "active", "banned" and "deleted".
 * 
 * <code>
 * Enum::Create('UserState', 'inactive', 'active', 'banned', 'deleted');
 * </code>
 *
 * Using Enums:
 * ============
 *
 * The following example demonstrates how to compare two Enum elements
 *
 * <code>
 * var_dump(UserState::inactive == UserState::banned); // result: false
 * var_dump(UserState::active == UserState::active); // result: true
 * </code>
 *
 * Special Enum methods:
 * =====================
 *
 * Get the number of elements in an Enum:
 *
 * <code>
 * echo UserState::CountEntries(); // result: 4
 * </code>
 *
 * Get a list with all elements of the Enum:
 *
 * <code>
 * $allUserStates = UserState::GetEntries();
 * </code>
 *
 * Get a name of an element:
 *
 * <code>
 * echo UserState::GetName(UserState::deleted); // result: deleted
 * </code>
 *
 * Get an integer ID for an element (e.g. to store as a value in a database table):
 * This is simply the index of the element (beginning with 1).
 * Note that this ID is only unique for this Enum but now between different Enums.
 *
 * <code>
 * echo UserState::GetDatabaseID(UserState::active); // result: 2
 * </code>
 */
class Enum
{

    /**
     * @var Enum $instance The only instance of Enum (Singleton)
     */
    private static $instance;

    /**
     * @var array $enums    An array of all enums with Enum names as keys
     *          and arrays of element names as values
     */
    private $enums;

    /**
     * Constructs (the only) Enum instance
     */
    private function __construct()
    {
        $this->enums = array();
    }

    /**
     * Constructs a new enum
     *
     * @param string $name The class name for the enum
     * @param mixed $_ A list of strings to use as names for enum entries
     */
    public static function Create($name, $_)
    {
        // Create (the only) Enum instance if this hasn't happened yet
        if (self::$instance===null)
        {
            self::$instance = new Enum();
        }

        // Fetch the arguments of the function
        $args = func_get_args();
        // Exclude the "name" argument from the array of function arguments,
        // so only the enum element names remain in the array
        array_shift($args);
        self::$instance->add($name, $args);
    }

    /**
     * Creates an enumeration if this hasn't happened yet
     * 
     * @param string $name The class name for the enum
     * @param array $fields The names of the enum elements
     */
    private function add($name, $fields)
    {
        if (!array_key_exists($name, $this->enums))
        {
            $this->enums[$name] = array();

            // Generate the code of the class for this enumeration
            $classDeclaration =     "class " . $name . " {\n"
                        . "private static \$name = '" . $name . "';\n"
                        . $this->getClassConstants($name, $fields)
                        . $this->getFunctionGetEntries($name)
                        . $this->getFunctionCountEntries($name)
                        . $this->getFunctionGetDatabaseID()
                        . $this->getFunctionGetName()
                        . "}";

            // Create the class for this enumeration
            eval($classDeclaration);
        }
    }

    /**
     * Returns the code of the class constants
     * for an enumeration. These are the representations
     * of the elements.
     * 
     * @param string $name The class name for the enum
     * @param array $fields The names of the enum elements
     *
     * @return string The code of the class constants
     */
    private function getClassConstants($name, $fields)
    {
        $constants = '';

        foreach ($fields as $field)
        {
            // Create a unique ID for the Enum element
            // This ID is unique because class and variables
            // names can't contain a semicolon. Therefore we
            // can use the semicolon as a separator here.
            $uniqueID = $name . ";" . $field;
            $constants .=   "const " . $field . " = '". $uniqueID . "';\n";
            // Store the unique ID
            array_push($this->enums[$name], $uniqueID);
        }

        return $constants;
    }

    /**
     * Returns the code of the function "GetEntries()"
     * for an enumeration
     * 
     * @param string $name The class name for the enum
     *
     * @return string The code of the function "GetEntries()"
     */
    private function getFunctionGetEntries($name) 
    {
        $entryList = '';        

        // Put the unique element IDs in single quotes and
        // separate them with commas
        foreach ($this->enums[$name] as $key => $entry)
        {
            if ($key > 0) $entryList .= ',';
            $entryList .= "'" . $entry . "'";
        }

        return  "public static function GetEntries() { \n"
            . " return array(" . $entryList . ");\n"
            . "}\n";
    }

    /**
     * Returns the code of the function "CountEntries()"
     * for an enumeration
     * 
     * @param string $name The class name for the enum
     *
     * @return string The code of the function "CountEntries()"
     */
    private function getFunctionCountEntries($name) 
    {
        // This function will simply return a constant number (e.g. return 5;)
        return  "public static function CountEntries() { \n"
            . " return " . count($this->enums[$name]) . ";\n"
            . "}\n";
    }

    /**
     * Returns the code of the function "GetDatabaseID()"
     * for an enumeration
     * 
     * @return string The code of the function "GetDatabaseID()"
     */
    private function getFunctionGetDatabaseID()
    {
        // Check for the index of this element inside of the array
        // of elements and add +1
        return  "public static function GetDatabaseID(\$entry) { \n"
            . "\$key = array_search(\$entry, self::GetEntries());\n"
            . " return \$key + 1;\n"
            . "}\n";
    }

    /**
     * Returns the code of the function "GetName()"
     * for an enumeration
     *
     * @return string The code of the function "GetName()"
     */
    private function getFunctionGetName()
    {
        // Remove the class name from the unique ID 
        // and return this value (which is the element name)
        return  "public static function GetName(\$entry) { \n"
            . "return substr(\$entry, strlen(self::\$name) + 1 , strlen(\$entry));\n"
            . "}\n";
    }

}


?>

Answer 9

Here is a github library for handling type-safe enumerations in php:

This library handle classes generation, classes caching and it implements the Type Safe Enumeration design pattern, with several helper methods for dealing with enums, like retrieving an ordinal for enums sorting, or retrieving a binary value, for enums combinations.

The generated code use a plain old php template file, which is also configurable, so you can provide your own template.

It is full test covered with phpunit.

php-enums on github (feel free to fork)

Usage: (@see usage.php, or unit tests for more details)

<?php
//require the library
require_once __DIR__ . '/src/Enum.func.php';

//if you don't have a cache directory, create one
@mkdir(__DIR__ . '/cache');
EnumGenerator::setDefaultCachedClassesDir(__DIR__ . '/cache');

//Class definition is evaluated on the fly:
Enum('FruitsEnum', array('apple' , 'orange' , 'rasberry' , 'bannana'));

//Class definition is cached in the cache directory for later usage:
Enum('CachedFruitsEnum', array('apple' , 'orange' , 'rasberry' , 'bannana'), '\my\company\name\space', true);

echo 'FruitsEnum::APPLE() == FruitsEnum::APPLE(): ';
var_dump(FruitsEnum::APPLE() == FruitsEnum::APPLE()) . "\n";

echo 'FruitsEnum::APPLE() == FruitsEnum::ORANGE(): ';
var_dump(FruitsEnum::APPLE() == FruitsEnum::ORANGE()) . "\n";

echo 'FruitsEnum::APPLE() instanceof Enum: ';
var_dump(FruitsEnum::APPLE() instanceof Enum) . "\n";

echo 'FruitsEnum::APPLE() instanceof FruitsEnum: ';
var_dump(FruitsEnum::APPLE() instanceof FruitsEnum) . "\n";

echo "->getName()\n";
foreach (FruitsEnum::iterator() as $enum)
{
  echo "  " . $enum->getName() . "\n";
}

echo "->getValue()\n";
foreach (FruitsEnum::iterator() as $enum)
{
  echo "  " . $enum->getValue() . "\n";
}

echo "->getOrdinal()\n";
foreach (CachedFruitsEnum::iterator() as $enum)
{
  echo "  " . $enum->getOrdinal() . "\n";
}

echo "->getBinary()\n";
foreach (CachedFruitsEnum::iterator() as $enum)
{
  echo "  " . $enum->getBinary() . "\n";
}

Output:

FruitsEnum::APPLE() == FruitsEnum::APPLE(): bool(true)
FruitsEnum::APPLE() == FruitsEnum::ORANGE(): bool(false)
FruitsEnum::APPLE() instanceof Enum: bool(true)
FruitsEnum::APPLE() instanceof FruitsEnum: bool(true)
->getName()
  APPLE
  ORANGE
  RASBERRY
  BANNANA
->getValue()
  apple
  orange
  rasberry
  bannana
->getValue() when values have been specified
  pig
  dog
  cat
  bird
->getOrdinal()
  1
  2
  3
  4
->getBinary()
  1
  2
  4
  8