fooyc on Underscore.php

Why not using namespaced functions instead of static methods all in the same class ? This would have allowed to add new functions. This would even have allowed to use the _ namespace.

With namespaces:

    namespace _;  
    function each() {
    }

    // chaining can be achieved with this:

    class Wrapper {
        private $coll;
        function __construct($coll) {
            $this->coll = $coll;
        }
        function __call($name, $args) {
            array_unshift($this->coll,$args);
            return new self(call_user_func_array('_\\'.$name, $args));
        }
    }

    function __($coll) {
        return new Wrapper($coll);
    }

    use _;  
    _\each(...);

    // or
  
    __($coll)->each(...);

    // I can add new functions

    namespace _;
    function something(){}

With static methods:

    class __ {  
        function each() {  
        }  
    }

    // throws strict errors

    __::each(...);

    // can't add functions

Also it seems that the normal way to use the library is to call isntance methods statically, which triggers many warnings with E_STRICT :(

https://github.com/lstrojny/functional-php also brings some functional stuff to php.

unfletch 15y

Also, the double underscore prefix is reserved for magic methods:

    PHP reserves all function names starting with __ as magical. It is
    recommended that you do not use function names with __ in PHP unless you
    want some documented magic functionality.

It's only explicitly reserved for functions, so you're technically ok here, but it still may cause confusion.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.magic.php

bwh2 15y

It was a bit of pick your poison between a gettext() alias collision, ugly namespace syntax, and potential confusion with magic methods. Hopefully too many people aren't confused.

bwh2 15y

You can always add functions via mixin. I'll see what I can do about the warnings.

skrebbel 15y

But in a way, using the namespace like suggested is much more PHP-ish. After all, your class does not have sensible instances. There is not much OOP about it.

Where there is something not-much-OOP about something, PHP supplies global functions (compare md5() to 5 lines of Java code) instead of classes. So, using global functions would. in many ways, be much more PHP-ish than using static class methods (which is more Java-ish if you ask me).

Of course, you don't want to pollute the global namespace too much, so using the '_' namespace sounds excellent. I really like the idea.

bwh2 15y

Namespaces might be more PHP-ish, but I was primarily concerned with being Underscore-ish.

I'm also not entirely opposed to the namespace approach, but syntactically I would rather call:

  __::foo('bar');

than

  use _;  
  __\foo('bar');

fooyc 15y

How can I add a mixin to the __ class without editing it ?

bwh2 15y

Just copying this from the docs, but you can pass an array of functions to mixin:

  __::mixin(array(
    'capitalize'=> function($string) { return ucwords($string); }
  ));
  __::capitalize('moe'); // 'Moe'

Comments