php data classes? - php

Question

I've learned most of my OOP practices from C#, and coded php primarily in MVC but without custom objects for data types (user information and such I primarily stored in associative arrays). I'm wanting to take what I've learned in C# (making structs, or data classes basically, to store specific types of data, such as a user record, or say an article's information) into php. This is so I can know exactly what data values to expect (because they're defined fields, instead of just added to an array), allowing a bit more abstraction between controller and view.
Is there a certain way to do this in php, and in the MVC design pattern specifically? I am curious where I should put the definitions of these new "data types."
Or am I just thinking about this in the wrong way, and there is a better way to do it?
EDIT:
A C# example of what I'm trying to accomplish:
class program1
{
public void main ()
{
Article randomArticle = getArticle (); //instead of returning an object array, it returns a defined data type with predefined fields, so I don't need to guess what's there and what isn't
Console.WriteLine(randomArticle.title);
Console.ReadLine();
}
public Article getArticle ()
{
return new Article("Sometitle", "SomeContent");
}
}
struct Article
{
public Title {get; private set;}
public Content {get; private set;}
public Article (string title, string content)
{
this.Title = title;
this.Content = content;
}
}
(idk if the above actually would compile, but it gives you the gist of what I'm attempting to do in PHP)

Answer 1

PHP is free of any logic you would like to implement. IMO, Ensuring data-types leads to a field of validations. I want you to check few terms, that will give you everything required.
Type Casting/ Juggling [docs here]
Casting is probably fastest way to stop unwanted input. The casts allowed are:
(int), (integer) - cast to integer
(bool), (boolean) - cast to boolean
(float), (double), (real) - cast to float
(string) - cast to string
(array) - cast to array
(object) - cast to object
(unset) - cast to NULL (PHP 5)
PHP Filters
PHP has a function filter_var (http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.filter-var.php) will helps you to compare a data type
var_dump(filter_var('bob#example.com', FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL));
var_dump(filter_var('http://example.com', FILTER_VALIDATE_URL, FILTER_FLAG_PATH_REQUIRED));
PHP inbuild() functions
They are many functions in php, which can help you check the data types
is_array(): checks array
is_integer(): Check integer
is_object(): Check objects
is_float(): Checks Floating point number
ctype_digit(): Checks Integer
and many more
Regex Validation
You will be able to find many resources on this on the internet.
Other Resources
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/sanitize-and-validate-data-with-php-filters/
http://www.phpro.org/tutorials/PHP-Type-Casting.html
Update
Your above method might turn into something like this
public function Article($title, $content) {
if(is_string($title)) { $this -> title = $title; }
if(is_string($content)) { $this -> content = $content; }
}

Answer 2

In PHP, you are free to write your own systems that accomplish MVC. Instead of rolling your own to start, though, I suggest looking into using an existing system. There's a huge ecosphere of us php types, and a long history. By some opinions, PHP is more well-established than a younger and faster evolving C#. It's also simpler, which is nice. Specifically, though: CakePHP is one I'd recommend. Drupal is more robust. And there's always Zend. Advantage of going Zend is the end-to-end solution from the editor to the server optimization and security.
p.s. c# is more mvvm
EDIT: code example
class Article {
protected $_title;
protected $_content;
public function setTitle( $title ) {
$this->_title = $title;
}
public function setContent( $content ) {
$this->_content = $content;
}
public function getTitle() {
return $this->_title;
}
public function getContent() {
return $this->_content;
}
/* magic not advisable; a technically valid technique, though it can lead to problems
public function __get( $property ) {
switch( $property ) {
case 'title': return $this->_title; break;
case 'content': return $this->_content; break;
default: break;
}
}
*/
}