Nick Wilson wrote:
>So I was thinking:
>
>$form=new form('dk')
>
>Would extend the class to include all the dk language routines and
>
>$form=new form('en')
>
>Would do likewise for english.
>
You can do this with encapsulation. Your "form" object would actually be
a wrapper around an encapsulated object which does all of the actual
work. When you call the constructer it specifies which object is
encapsulated by the wrapper. For example:
class FormBase {
// Contains any methods shared by both formDK and formEN
}
class FormDK extends FormBase {
// The class for DK language support
}
class FormEN extends FormBase {
// The class for EN language support
}
class Form {
var $formObject;
function form($language) {
if ($language == 'dk') {
$this->formObject = new FormDK;
} else {
$this->formObject = new FormEN;
}
}
// The other methods in this class simply "pass through" to
$this->formObject - e.g
function doSomething($variable) {
return $this->formObject->doSomething($variable);
}
}
Another different of doing the same kind of thing would be to use an
"object factory" as seen in the PEAR DB abstraction layer. This works by
having a static class method (i.e a method that can be called without
creating an instance of the class first) which returns a different
object depending on what arguments you use. Here is an example (it
expects FormEN and FormDK to have been defined as above):
class Form {
function getFormObject($language) {
if ($language == 'dk') {
return new FormDK;
} else {
return new FormEN;
}
}
You can now create you object with the following code:
$form = Form::getFormObject('en');
or
$form = Form::getFormObject('dk');
<disclaimer: I haven't tested any of the above code but the principles
should be sound>
Cheers,
Simon Willison
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