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Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2007 09:53:16 -0700
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To: Sebastian Bergmann <sb@sebastian-bergmann.de>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV]  Class Posing
From: stas@zend.com (Stanislav Malyshev)

>  Earlier this year, Johannes implemented class posing for PHP as follows:
> 
>    <?php
>    class Foo {}
>    class Bar extends Foo {}
> 
>    function new_overload($className)
>    {
>        if ($className == 'Foo') {
>            return new Bar;
>        }
> 
>        // ...
>    }
> 
>    $o = new Foo;
>    // $o is an object of Foo.
> 
>    register_new_overload('new_overload');
> 
>    $o = new Foo;
>    // $o is an object of Bar.
>    ?>

This looks like factory pattern. What's wrong with implementing it as 
factory?

>  However, to make this a viable mechanism that can be used in tools such
>  as PHPUnit (for which I could really use this functionality), we agreed
>  that it actually belongs into the core.

I personally don't see much of the use of it in the core, and it 
definitely adds very "magic" things - you don't know anymore what class 
you are instantiating when you run "new Foo". My opinion is it belongs 
to places like "runkit" which do tricks with the language, but I don't 
see much use for it in the core. Could you explain more why existing 
pattern won't work for the same?
-- 
Stanislav Malyshev, Zend Software Architect
stas@zend.com   http://www.zend.com/
(408)253-8829   MSN: stas@zend.com