Namespace usage in object orientated style PHP - php

Question

I have been fiddling around with Namespace in PHP and was trying to make it work, but it fails
Let me show the example code:
test\views\classes\MainController.php
<?php
namespace test\views\classes;
class MainController
{
public function echoData()
{
echo 'ECHOD';
}
}
test\views\index.php
<?php
require_once '..\autoloader\autoloader.php';
use test\views\classes\MainController;
$cont = new MainController();
$cont->echoData();
test\autoloader\autoloader.php
<?php
spl_autoload_register(null, FALSE);
spl_autoload_extensions('.php');
function classLoader($class)
{
$fileName = strtolower($class) . '.php';
$file = 'classes/' . $fileName;
if(!file_exists($file))
{
return FALSE;
}
include $file;
}
spl_autoload_register('classLoader');
Throws an error:
Fatal error: Class 'test\views\classes\MainController' not found in ..\test\views\index.php on line 6
Am Im missing something!
EDIT: The code works fine when both the index.php and maincontroller.php are in the same directory without using autoloader but using require_once('maincontroller.php');
Does not work if they are in different directories and with autoloader function. Can anyone sort this out.
Thanks

Answer 1

Multiple problems in your code:
The namespace separator (\) is not a valid path separator in Linux/Unix. Your autoloader should do something like this:
$classPath = str_replace('\\', '/', strtolower($class)) . '.php';
if (!#include_once($classPath)) {
throw new Exception('Unable to find class ' .$class);
}
Plus, the paths are all relative. You should set your include path. If your site structure is like this:
bootstrap.php
lib/
test/
views/
index.php
classes/
maincontroller.php
autoloader/
autoloader.php
Your bootstrap.php should look similar to:
$root = dirname(__FILE__);
$paths = array(
".",
$root."/lib",
get_include_path()
);
set_include_path(implode(PATH_SEPARATOR, $paths));
include 'lib/test/autoloader/autoloader.php';
Now, in your test/views/index.php you can just include the bootstrap:
include '../../bootstrap.php';

Answer 2

Add a die statement to your class loader:
$file = 'classes/' . $fileName;
die('File ' . $file . "\n");
And you get
File classes/test\views\classes\maincontroller.php
Is that really where your main controller class lives?