Re: [PHP] another question on setting include paths for a project

On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Richard Quadling wrote:

> Depending upon what is being included, an autoloader could help
> here.
>
> The main payoffs for autoloading are reduced memory footprint (class
> are loaded JIT) and no need for each class to know exactly where the
> other classes are.
>
> So, your main page needs to load the autoloader and the autoloader
> handles the loading of the classes.
>
> No need to change the include_path setting.

  ok, i'm looking at the PHP manual page for autoload, sample:

  function __autoload($class_name)
  {
    require_once $class_name . '.php';
  }

and some obvious questions suggest themselves:

1) in as simple an example as above, does the include_path still
control the search?  since i'm not doing anything fancy above in terms
of specifying *where* that class is defined, it seems that i'll still
have the same problem to solve, no?

2) i'm guessing that i can make the __autoload function as
sophisticated as i want, in that i can have it consult an environment
variable to determine where to search, but i'm still unsure as to how
i can set an environment variable to be consulted on the "server"
side.

rday
--

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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

            Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.

Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
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