Php – When to use static vs instantiated classes

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PHP is my first programming language. I can't quite wrap my head around when to use static classes vs instantiated objects.

I realize that you can duplicate and clone objects. However in all of my time using php any object or function always ended up as a single return (array, string, int) value or void.

I understand concepts in books like a video game character class. duplicate car object and make the new one red, that all makes sense, but what doesn't is its application in php and web apps.

A simple example. A blog. What objects of a blog would be best implemented as static or instantiated objects? The DB class? Why not just instantiate the db object in the global scope? Why not make every object static instead? What about performance?

Is it all just style? Is there a proper way to do this stuff?

Best Answer

This is quite an interesting question -- and answers might get interesting too ^^

The simplest way to consider things might be :

use an instanciated class where each object has data on its own (like a user has a name)
use a static class when it's just a tool that works on other stuff (like, for instance, a syntax converter for BB code to HTML ; it doesn't have a life on its own)

(Yeah, I admit, really really overly-simplified...)

One thing about static methods/classes is that they don't facilitate unit testing (at least in PHP, but probably in other languages too).

Another thing about static data is that only one instance of it exists in your program : if you set MyClass::$myData to some value somewhere, it'll have this value, and only it, every where -- Speaking about the user, you would be able to have only one user -- which is not that great, is it ?

For a blog system, what could I say ? There's not much I would write as static, actually, I think ; maybe the DB-access class, but probably not, in the end ^^

Related Solutions

C++ – When should you use a class vs a struct in C++

The differences between a class and a struct in C++ is:

struct members and base classes/structs are public by default.
class members and base classes/struts are private by default.

Both classes and structs can have a mixture of public, protected and private members, can use inheritance and can have member functions.

I would recommend you:

use struct for plain-old-data structures without any class-like features;
use class when you make use of features such as private or protected members, non-default constructors and operators, etc.

Python – Are static class variables possible in Python

Variables declared inside the class definition, but not inside a method are class or static variables:

>>> class MyClass:
...     i = 3
...
>>> MyClass.i
3

As @millerdev points out, this creates a class-level i variable, but this is distinct from any instance-level i variable, so you could have

>>> m = MyClass()
>>> m.i = 4
>>> MyClass.i, m.i
>>> (3, 4)

This is different from C++ and Java, but not so different from C#, where a static member can't be accessed using a reference to an instance.

See what the Python tutorial has to say on the subject of classes and class objects.

@Steve Johnson has already answered regarding static methods, also documented under "Built-in Functions" in the Python Library Reference.

class C:
    @staticmethod
    def f(arg1, arg2, ...): ...

@beidy recommends classmethods over staticmethod, as the method then receives the class type as the first argument, but I'm still a little fuzzy on the advantages of this approach over staticmethod. If you are too, then it probably doesn't matter.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C++ – When should you use a class vs a struct in C++

Python – Are static class variables possible in Python

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