Namespace methods

Thank you for the info.

I have some questions/suggestions (they may be silly - please feel
welcome to tell me so, if they are):

You have solved the problem (grievance number 5) of file based scoping,
by introducing a function that can only be used within __autoload (the
autoload_import_class function). Is that function meant to be called
from within the class file? If so, I'd like to offer an alternative,
that would allow usage even outside of the __autoload function.

Namespaces are generally implemented in file based languages (like c,
c++, c# etc.), so there isn't an issue with clearing out imported
namespaces when a file ends - but since (let me know if this is an
incorrect assumption) PHP is an inline based interpreter - it would make
sense to have a way to remove namespaces after they have been imported.
So the first suggestion is to add an unimport (export?) function that
would do just that - remove imported classes (or functions/vars, etc.)
from the current (or global?) scope.

This functionality combined with the get_imported_namespaces function
would allow users to emulate file based namespaces from within the
__autoload function, while allowing them to use the standard import
statement from within class files. Here is a crude sudo code (that
incorrectly assumes import and unimport take a string as an argument)
example of an __autoload function that does that:

function __autoload($classname) {
// class name figuring out code goes here
...
// store current namespaces
$current_namespaces = get_imported_namespaces();
// remove all current namespaces
foreach ($current_namespaces as $namespace_name) {
unimport($namespace_name);
}
// include the class file
require_once(...$classname);
// remove all namespaces imported from the class file
$new_namespaces = get_imported_namespaces();
foreach ($new_namespaces) {
unimport($namespace_name);
}
// reimport the $current_namespaces from the array
foreach ($current_namespaces as $namespace_name) {
import($namespace_name);
}
}

The addition of two new functions - clear_all_namespaces() and
import_namespaces() (or reimport_namespaces, restore_namespaces, etc.)
could help clean that up a bit. The example would then look like this:

function __autoload($classname) {
// class name figuring out code goes here
...
// store current namespaces
$current_namespaces = get_imported_namespaces();
// remove all current namespaces
clear_all_namespaces();
// include the class file
require_once(...$classname);
// remove all namespaces imported from the class file
clear_all_namespaces();
// reimport $current_namespaces from the array
restore_namespaces($current_namespaces);
}

You can see from the example, how this would work inline, just as well
as within the __autoload function.

Am I completely nuts here? What do you think?

Kevin N.

PS You could even wrap all those Namespace manipulation methods into a
class (initial attempt):

<?php
interface Namespaces {
/**
* Alternative to the import statement.
* @param $ns_name - a string containing the name of the namespace
to import
*/
public static import($ns_name);

/**
 * Removes an imported namespace.
 * $param $ns_name - a string containing the name of the namespace 

to unimport
*/
public static unimport($ns_name);

/**
 * Clears all imported namespaces.
 */
public static unimport_all();

/**
 * Clears a collection of namespaces.
 * $param $ns_names - an array containing the names of the 

namespaces to clear
*/
public static unimport_multiple($ns_names);

/**
 * Imports a collection of namespaces (can be used to restore a 

previously cleared collection).
* $param $ns_names - an array containing the names of the
namespaces to clear
*/
public static import_multiple($ns_names);

/**
 * Get a list of current imported namespaces
 * @return array of currently imported namespaces
 */
public static get_imported();

}
?>

Jessie Hernandez wrote:

Kevin,

Just to make sure, you can get the latest patch from
http://www.zend.com/zend/week/pat/pat44.txt. For documentation, please
refer to this post: http://news.php.net/php.internals/17484.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you still cannot get the patch
to compile (I wrote the patch against a 5.1 CVS version some months ago,
maybe it doesn't apply cleanly anymore, haven't tried).

Regards,

Jessie Hernandez

Kevin Newman wrote:

Hello,

I have been trying to compile PHP with the namespaces patch, but have
been completely unable to find the time after an initial attempt failed
(I'm compiling on windows). So I just wanted to know what methods this
patch provides, if it does at all. Does it support import for example?
If so, is there any documentation on the methods the patch provides?

Thanks,

Kevin N.