Tips about a good class-structure for website? (php)

Question

Hello

I'm creating a kind of massive network for users to register and login. I want to try using classes, but I've never used them (expect some mysql-wrappers etc). Could you provide some tips and sample-structure for my project?

The idea is to simply have a index.php, which prints the whole page and does all the action. Index.php calls functions from classes inside other files.

I need:

• user-class for checking if logged in and retrieving user-info
• different kind of "page"-classes for functions needed in those pages

I'm not asking for full code, but just a start. I don't know, how to use public functions or anything like that. How to wrap these classes to work together? So no functions, just the structure!

Martti Laine

Answer 1

I would recommend you look over some free resources. This will be more helpful than trying to explain everything in a post:

• http://www.spoono.com/php/tutorials/tutorial.php?id=27
• http://www.php-editors.com/articles/simple_php_classes.php

Answer 2

Well for the first part, I'll give you hint on using the index for everything. I use a switch statement that simply calls out everything, like so:

<?php


switch($_REQUEST['mode']){

    case 'create':
        $ourhtml = $object->do_create();
    break;

    case 'read':
        $ourhtml = $object->do_read();
    break;

    case 'update':
        $ourhtml = $object->do_update();
    break;

    case 'delete':
        $ourhtml = $object->do_delete();
    break;

    default:

    $ourhtml = "<form action=\"index.php\" method=\"get\">
    <input type=\"text\" name=\"name\"> 
    <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"mode\" value=\"create\">
    <input type=\"submit\" value=\"create new\">
    </form>";

    <?php

    break;

    }

    echo $ourhtml;

?>

This code by itself does nothing, but it gives you a general idea of how you can switch between many different "pages" using just index. Adding a new page is as simple as adding another case to your switch statement.

As far as structure goes, I would really recommend you do some reading on MVC. It might seem complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, it will save you a lot of time and trouble. Here are some good reads on it:

http://nemetral.net/2008/07/31/a-gentle-introduction-to-mvc-part-1/

http://www.phpro.org/tutorials/Model-View-Controller-MVC.html

Also, for general class structure, nothing beats php.net's explanation of it:

Classes and Objects

I hope this helps.