Object collection classes or not - php

Question

I'm trying to decide whether to create many classes for each content type I have in my application/database or just stick with procedural code.
Version 1:
make a class for each object collection:
class App{
protected $user_collection;
function getUserCollection(){
if(!isset($this->user_collection)
$this->user_collection = new UserCollection($this);
return $this->user_collection;
}
// ...
}
class UserCollection{
function __construct(App $app){
$this->app = $app;
}
function getUser($user){
return new User($this->app, $user);
}
function getUsers($options){
$users = $this->app->getDatabase()->query($options);
foreach($users as &$user)
$user = new User($this, $user);
return $users;
}
// ...
}
which I'm using like:
$app = new App();
echo $app->getUserCollection()->getUser('admin')->email_address;
version 2:
keep all methods in a single class
class App{
function getUsers($options){
$users = $this->getDatabase()->query($options);
foreach($users as &$user)
$user = new User($this, $user);
return $users;
}
function getUser($user){
return new User($this, $user);
}
// ...
}
used like:
$app = new App();
echo $app->getUser('admin')->email_address;
version 3:
make getUsers() a a static method in the "User" class (the method instantiates a new User object):
$app = new App();
echo User::getUser($app, 'admin')->email_address;
Which way should I go? The "user" object is just an example, App has other objects too, like "database", "pages" etc.

Answer 1

I would use your version 1, but I would make getUser() and getUsers() methods of App.
This gets rid of the awkward getUserCollection() call, because instead inside the getUser() and what not you just call $this->user_collection.

Answer 2

Personnaly, I often used the second one with method like this:
class user {
/**
* Load object from ...
*/
public function load($userId) {}
/**
* Insert or Update the current object
*/
public function save() {}
/**
* Delete the current object
*/
public function delete() {
// delete object
// Reset ID for a future save
$this->UserID = null;
}
/**
* Get a list of object
*/
public static function getList() {
// Make your search here (from DB)
// Put rows into new "SELF" object
$list = array();
foreach($rows as $row) {
$obj = new self();
$obj->populate($row);
$list[$obj->UserID] = $obj; // Associative array or not...
}
}
}
Like you can see, I set my "getList" function static to simply access like this:
$listUsers = user::getList();
OK, it's very simple but work in most case of simple app.