asked on 4/21/2017

OOP Question

Im fed up of writing a lot of complex HTML code, so thought about writing it in a nice easy object, but what I want to do is build up a statment via multiple calls. For example:-

$myObject->createDiv("divID")->createTextBox("txt1")->createTextBox("txt2")->createTextBox("txt3");

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Ive got my code nicely working with:-

$myObject->createDiv("divID");

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But I have no idea how I can create my object to accept multiple createTextBox fields. I know its possible as Ive seen it done in PHPCharts library, just no idea how to implement it myself.

I know my examples look easy, but what I want to do inside 'CreateTextBox' is set height, width, ID, Classes, Data objects etc, hence why it becomes complicated, but want to try and make my life easier, and hence the simple example to start with and then I can build out.

Any ideas?

PHP

Last Comment

tonelm54

4/26/2017

SOLUTION

Ray Paseur

4/21/2017

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hielo

4/21/2017

>> Ive got my code nicely working with:
It would help if you post what you have. Are you buffering or are you echoing right away?

For the chaining to work, you need to return $this on all the chainable methods.

>> but what I want to do inside 'CreateTextBox' is set height, width, ID, Classes, Data objects etc
pass an associative array instead of simple string. Then within the respective method you need to iterate over the array properties to decide what you want to do.

tonelm54

4/21/2017

ASKER

Ok, so quickly reading things, what Ive got is:-

<?php
class tstHTML {
    private $strHTML;
    
    public function createDiv (string $id) {
        return "divID=$id-" . $this->strHTML . "-div";
    }
    
    public function createTextBox(string $id) {
        $this->strHTML .= "txtID=$id,";
        return $this;
    }
}

$tt = new tstHTML();
echo $tt->createDiv("div1")->createTextBox("txt1")->createTextBox("txt2");
?>

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But I get

Exception: Call to a member function createTextBox() on string

I know the HTML isnt right, just testing at the moment.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

tonelm54

4/21/2017

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Ray Paseur

4/21/2017

Unless you can think of a really important reason to mark a method or property "private" don't do that. It makes that part of the class into something that cannot be extended. Instead start with everything public and then make a list of reasons why any of the visibility characteristics should change. You will probably come to the conclusion that protected properties and public methods make a lot of sense.

Best of luck with the project! ~Ray

tonelm54

4/26/2017

ASKER

:-) Got it working thanks to your advise again