loganlinn/constantsarray

A simple array-like PHP class for using constants in strings

dev-master 2012-10-01 19:41 UTC

MIT

• Logan Linn

• array
• utility
• constant
• interpolation
• heredoc
• magic

README

A simple array-like PHP class for using constants in strings

In PHP, if you want to use a constant in a string, you have a few options.

You could use the concatenation operator:

define('COLOR_RED',    0);
define('COLOR_GREEN',  1);
define('COLOR_BLUE',   2);

echo "SELECT * FROM shirts WHERE color IN (".COLOR_RED.",".COLOR_GREEN.",".COLOR_BLUE.")";

or use good ol' sprintf()

define('COLOR_RED',    0);
define('COLOR_GREEN',  1);
define('COLOR_BLUE',   2);

echo sprintf(
	'SELECT * FROM shirts WHERE color IN (%d, %d, %d)',
	COLOR_RED,
	COLOR_GREEN,
	COLOR_BLUE
)
SQL;

or you even assign the constants to a variable:

define('COLOR_RED',    0);
define('COLOR_GREEN',  1);
define('COLOR_BLUE',   2);

$COLOR_RED   = COLOR_RED;
$COLOR_GREEN = COLOR_GREEN;
$COLOR_BLUE  = COLOR_BLUE;

echo <<<SQL
	SELECT * FROM shirts WHERE color IN (
		$COLOR_RED,
		$COLOR_GREEN,
		$COLOR_BLUE
	)
SQL;

Note: These examples are meant to be simple, but consider more complex cases (queries).

These are all approaches that I've seen, and don't get me wrong, get the job done, but some can be difficult or slow to read and some are just plain annoying to type or edit. What other options are there?

Introducing ConstantsArray. It's a simple, array-like class that allows lightweight access to your constants inside of a string without having to break out of double-quote strings or having to assign a bunch of variables for a heredoc.

define('COLOR_RED',    0);
define('COLOR_GREEN',  1);
define('COLOR_BLUE',   2);
$const = new ConstantsArray();

echo <<<SQL
	SELECT * FROM shirts WHERE color IN (
		{$const['COLOR_RED']},
		{$const['COLOR_GREEN']},
		{$const['COLOR_BLUE']}
	)
SQL;

Short, concise, and readable.

ConstantsArray implements the ArrayAccess interface for array-like access to the constant() function, so it is simple and reasonably lightweight. I encourage you to read the source of this class.

I should acknowledge that another option would be to use PHP's get_defined_constants() function to get all of the constants in the environment as an array, which you could use in a similar fashion as a ConstantsArray. However, this can be a big waste of memory.

That's pretty much it. Enjoy!

License

ConstantsArray is licensed under the MIT license. See LICENSE for more details