How do I include a file in a class?

Question

Hey,

I want to include a file to be accessible to any method/function in a PHP class. The file just contains a base-64 encoded variable. How do I do this?

Thanks.

Answer 1

<?php include("common.php"); ?>

Check here.

Answer 2

For this situation, you'd better use a constant.

define('MY_BASE64_VAR', base64_encode('foo'));

It will be available everywhere and immutable.

require "constant.php";
class Bar {
    function showVariable() {echo MY_BASE64_VAR;}
}

Of course, you will still need to include the file where it is defined prior to using it in you classes.

Answer 3

if you want to make sure that it is included in every class, make sure you include it in every class but use the include_once for efficency

<?php include_once("common.php"); ?>

Answer 4

If you just save the base64 encoded data, without any additional php code in that file you can simply read its contents, decode the data and assign it to a property of the object.

class Foo {
  protected $x;

  public function setSource($path) {
    // todo: add as much validating/sanitizing code as needed
    $c = file_get_contents($path);
    $this->x = base64_decode($c);
  }

  public function bar() {
    echo 'x=', $this->x;
  }
}

// this will create/overwrite the file test.stackoverflow.txt, which isn't removed at the end of the script.
file_put_contents('test.stackoverflow.txt', base64_encode('mary had a little lamb'));
$foo = new Foo;
$foo->setSource('test.stackoverflow.txt');
$foo->bar();

prints x=mary had a little lamb.

(You might want to decouple that a bit more ...but it's only an example.)