PHP 5.3.0 USE identifier - php

I asked a question yesterday about the USE identifier and it was answered PHP 5.3.0 USE keyword -- how to backport in 5.2?.
However I've had to extend my script to do this twice and unsure how I accommodate both
$available_event_objects = array_filter($event_objects, function ($event_object) use ($week_events) {
// keep if the event is not in $week_events
return !in_array($event_object, $week_events);
});`
and
$calendar_weeks[$week_count][$calendar_date] = array_filter($available_event_objects, function ($event_object) use ($date_pointer) {
// keep if the event is happening on this day
return ($date_pointer >= $event_object->start_date && $date_pointer <= $event_object->end_date);
});`
How can I change this to get it to work in 5.2.9?
Can someone point me in the right direction??
Cheers

PHP did not have anonymous functions before 5.3. You must use any of the callback types instead. Because this gets more difficult and is not very idiomatic with use cases such as yours, I would advise you to apply an imperative programming style instead.
$available_event_objects = array();
foreach ($event_objects as $event_object) {
if (in_array($event_object, $week_events)) {
$available_event_objects[] = $event_object;
}
}
That said, for this case you can freely use array_intersect, ie. $available_event_objects = array_intersect($week_events, $event_objects);

It's execeptionally sketchily covered in the manual http://www.php.net/manual/en/functions.anonymous.php under "closures".
What use ($var) does is share a variable between the anonymous function and the parent scope. Usually it will just keep the initial value, and turn that parameter practically into sort of an static variable.
To turn it into a PHP 5.2 compatible construct, it is always best to turn the closures into static callback functions. Instead of = function () {} write an ordinary declaration:
function cb_event_filter_week($event_object) {
A very non-pretty way would be to share the closure/use variable via the global scope instead. For that rewrite the function to
function cb_event_filter_week($event_object) {
global $week_events;
You will have to do the same in the parent function, also to initialize it! And it is highly advisable to give that variable a significantly more unique name. A nicer alternative here would be a static variable, if you only need to invoke this callback function at one point (!) in the application flow:
function cb_event_filter_week($event_object) {
static $week_events = 0;
Really depends on how it is utilized. But in either case you can then write = array_filter($event_objects, "cb_event_filter_week") for using them in PHP 5.2

Updated answer:
While the answer in the original question is correct, and does allow you to easily use array_filter in php 5.2, without closures; it will be easier to simply do a for loop:
$output = array_filter($input, function($input) use ($stuff) { return /* condition */ } );
Changes to :
$output = array();
foreach($input as $key=>$value) {
if (/* condition */) {
$output[$key] = $value;
}
}

Related

Return a loop in function php

Is it possible to return a loop? not the result but the loop it self.
I want to create a function in php. For example like this.
function myloop($sql){
$query = mysql_query($sql);
return while(mysql_fetch_assoc($query))
}
The reason i want to create this is for me to avoid repeating code. Anyone can help me? Thank you..
No, but you can simulate that with an Iterator for stable released PHP as of today. In PHP 5.5 there will be generators that is close, too.
$lazyQuery = new SqlResultItertor($sql);
foreach ($lazyQuery as $assoc) {
$assoc; # the result, one per row
}
BTW: PDO and MySqli offer this already out of the box (not lazy query, but the result is traversable), for mysql you need to write such an iterator-result object your own.
For some mysql_* functions related code, see this answer. However the general suggestion as of today is to use PDO or mysqli instead, those offer more out of the box. See How to successfully rewrite old mysql-php code with deprecated mysql_* functions?
No, you can't. You can pass a function to a function, though:
// The myloop function, with another name.
function query($sql, $rowcallback)
{
$query = mysqli_query($sql); // use mysqli, not mysql
while
( ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) &&
call_user_func($rowcallback, $row) );
}
// The code to process a row.
function processRow(array $row)
{
// Use your row here..
var_dump($row);
return true; // You can return false to break processing.
}
//calling:
query($yourSelf, 'processRow');
Instead of passing the function by name, you can also use anonymous functions, depending on your php version:
//calling:
query($yourSelf,
function(array $row)
{
var_dump($row);
return true; // You can return false to break processing.
});
The function which is called from the callee is often called a callback. call_user_func is the best way to call a callback, since it will also accept methods and static methods, not just functions, so you're more flexible.
No, it isn't.
You can return a function to does nothing but run a loop, but you can't return the loop itself.
No.
You could, for instance, return an anonymous function which may contain a loop, but you can only return values from functions, not language constructs.
You should turn it inside out!
Instead of returning the loop, you could do it this way using Variable functions :
function myloop($sql, $myFunction){
$query = mysql_query($sql);
while(mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) {
$myFunction($result);
}
}
function doSomethingWithTheResult($result) {
echo $result; // just to have something here...
}
//now the usage:
myloop("SELECT 1", 'doSomethingWithTheResult');
With a squint, this is similar to the concept of the Template method OOP design pattern.
No, but you could do
function loopdate($sql,$code)
{
$query=mysql_query($sql)
while (mysql_fetch_assoc($query))
{
eval($code);
}
}
However - eval is rediculously dangerous its really really discouraged.
function loopdate($sql,$function)
{
$query=mysql_query($sql)
while ($data=mysql_fetch_assoc($query))
{
$function($data);
}
}
would be better.
myfunc($data)
{
foreach ($data as $key->$value)
{
print "<tr><td>".$key."<td><td>".$value."</td></tr>\n";
}
}
So you can call
loopdate("select * from mytable","myfunc");
In PHP 5.5+ it is possible, using the yield keyword instead of return (this is called a generator):
function myloop($sql) {
$query = mysql_query($sql);
while (($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query))) {
yield $row;
}
}
foreach (myloop('SELECT * FROM foo') as $row) {
// do something with $row
}
This is not much different from what you could do with iterators in older PHP, but the code is much cleaner.

PHP - way to validate many parameters of a function call quickly

I have identified an issue that always produce bugs in my application. It is that PHP is generally quite lax about passing null or empty variables to a function. For example
function do_this($a, $b, $c) {
....
}
One error-prone call could be
do_this($request['a'], $request['b'], $request['c']);
As PHP just silently passes null if any of the keys is not found. I have tried use doing error checking inside the function, as below:
function do_this($a, $b, $c) {
if (empty($a)) throw new Exception('$a is not defined!');
if (empty($b)) throw new Exception('$b is not defined!');
if (empty($c)) throw new Exception('$c is not defined!');
}
It's a headache when the function takes many parameters.
I could use E_STRICT, but I am using many third-party plugins and working off Wordpress, so I'll be getting warnings from other packages.
What's a good way to validate many parameters of a function call in PHP?
First off. you shouldn't be passing values without checking your indices like that. That's very very bad.
As for your question, why not just define default values and then loop through your variables to print an error?
function do_this($a = null, $b = null, $c = null) {
$numargs = func_num_args();
$arg_list = func_get_args();
for ($i = 0; $i < $numargs; $i++) {
if ($arg_list[$i] == null) {
//fail
}
}
}
You don't need all that code of course, just an example.
See here for more info : http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.func-get-args.php
You don't need to use empty inside your function, since the variables are certainly set. if (!$a) will do.
It's always possible to pass incorrect values, regardless of whether this happens due to variables not being set in the scope calling the function or just because the values are bad. At some point you need to check anyway. See PHP function param type best practices.
You must check in the scope calling the function for non-existing variables, not within the function. I.e.:
if (isset($foo, $bar, $baz)) {
do_this($foo, $bar, $baz);
}
You must always do this if there's a legitimate chance the variables may not exist, this is not specific to passing them as parameters to functions.
Have a look at args module from NSPL. It makes argument validation an easy process. To check all arguments in the function from your example you just have to add only one line of code:
function do_this($a, $b, $c)
{
expectsAll([nonEmpty, int], [$a, $b, $c]);
// do this...
}
More examples here.

Find the name of a calling var

Anyone has an idea if this is at all possible with PHP?
function foo($var) {
// the code here should output the value of the variable
// and the name the variable has when calling this function
}
$hello = "World";
foo($hello);
Would give me this output
varName = $hello
varValue = World
EDIT
Since most people here 'accuse' me of bad practices and global variables stuff i'm going to elaborate a little further on why we are looking for this behaviour.
the reason we are looking at this kind of behaviour is that we want to make assigning variables to our Views easier.
Most of the time we are doing this to assign variables to our view
$this->view->assign('products', $products);
$this->view->assign('members', $members);
While it would be easier and more readable to just be able to do the following and let the view be responsible to determining the variable name the assigned data gets in our views.
$this->view->assign($products);
$this->view->assign($members);
Short answer: impossible.
Long answer: you could dig through apd, bytekit, runkit, the Reflection API and debug_backtrace to see if any obscure combination would allow you to achieve this behavior.
However, the easiest way is to simply pass the variable name along with the actual variable, like you already do. It's short, it's easy to grasp, it's flexible when you need the variable to have a different name and it is way faster than any possible code that might be able to achieve the other desired behavior.
Keep it simple
removed irrelevant parts after OP edited the question
Regardless of my doubt that this is even possible, I think that forcing a programmer on how to name his variables is generally a bad idea. You will have to answer questions like
Why can't I name my variable $arrProducts instead of $products ?
You would also get into serious trouble if you want to put the return value of a function into the view. Imagine the following code in which (for whatever reason) the category needs to be lowercase:
$this->view->assign(strtolower($category));
This would not work with what you're planning.
My answer therefore: Stick to the 'verbose' way you're working, it is a lot easier to read and maintain.
If you can't live with that, you could still add a magic function to the view:
public function __set($name, $value) {
$this->assign($name, $value);
}
Then you can write
$this->view->product = $product;
I don't think there is any language where this is possible. That's simply not how variables work. There is a difference between a variable and the value it holds. Inside the function foo, you have the value, but the variable that held the value is not available. Instead, you have a new variable $var to hold that value.
Look at it like this: a variable is like a bucket with a name on it. The content (value) of the variable is what's inside the bucket. When you call a function, it comes with its own buckets (parameter names), and you pour the content of your bucket into those (well, the metaphor breaks down here because the value is copied and still available outside). Inside the function, there is no way to know about the bucket that used to hold the content.
What you're asking isn't possible. Even if it was, it would likely be considered bad practice as its the sort of thing that could easily get exploited.
If you're determined to achieve something like this, the closest you can get would be to pass the variable name as a string and reference it in the function from the $GLOBALS array.
eg
function this_aint_a_good_idea_really($var) {
print "Variable name: {$var}\n";
print "Variable contents: {$GLOBALS[$var]}\n";
}
$hello="World";
this_aint_a_good_idea_really('hello');
But as I say, that isn't really a good idea, nor is it very useful. (Frankly, almost any time you resort to using global variables, you're probably doing something wrong)
Its not impossible, you can find where a function was invoked from debug_backtrace() then tokenize a copy of the running script to extract the parameter expressions (what if the calling line is foo("hello $user, " . $indirect($user,5))?),
however whatever reason you have for trying to achieve this - its the wrong reason.
C.
Okay, time for some ugly hacks, but this is what I've got so far, I'll try to work on it a little later
<?php
class foo
{
//Public so we can test it later
public $bar;
function foo()
{
//Init the array
$this->bar = array();
}
function assign($__baz)
{
//Try to figure out the context
$context = debug_backtrace();
//assign the local array with the name and the value
//Alternately you can initialize the variable localy
//using $$__baz = $context[1]['object']->$__baz;
$this->bar[$__baz] = $context[1]['object']->$__baz;
}
}
//We need to have a calling context of a class in order for this to work
class a
{
function a()
{
}
function foobar()
{
$s = "testing";
$w = new foo();
//Reassign local variables to the class
foreach(get_defined_vars() as $name => $val)
{
$this->$name = $val;
}
//Assign the variable
$w->assign('s');
//test it
echo $w->bar['s'];
}
}
//Testrun
$a = new a();
$a->foobar();
impossible - the max. ammount of information you can get is what you see when dumping
debug_backtrace();
Maybe what you want to do is the other way around, a hackish solution like this works fine:
<?php
function assign($val)
{
global $$val;
echo $$val;
}
$hello = "Some value";
assign('hello');
Ouputs: Some value
What you wish to do, PHP does not intend for. There is no conventional way to accomplish this. In fact, only quite extravagant solutions are available. One that remains as close to PHP as I can think of is creating a new class.
You could call it NamedVariable, or something, and as its constructor it takes the variable name and the value. You'd initiate it as $products = new NamedVariable('products', $productData); then use it as $this->view->assign($products);. Of course, your declaration line is now quite long, you're involving yet another - and quite obscure - class into your code base, and now the assign method has to know about NamedVariable to extract both the variable name and value.
As most other members have answered, you are better off suffering through this slight lack of syntactic sugar. Mind you, another approach would be to create a script that recognizes instances of assign()'s and rewrites the source code. This would now involve some extra step before you ran your code, though, and for PHP that's silly. You might even configure your IDE to automatically populate the assign()'s. Whatever you choose, PHP natively intends no solution.
This solution uses the GLOBALS variable. To solve scope issues, the variable is passed by reference, and the value modified to be unique.
function get_var_name(&$var, $scope=FALSE) {
if($scope) $vals = $scope;
else $vals = $GLOBALS;
$old = $var;
$var = $new = 'unique'.rand().'value';
$vname = FALSE;
foreach ($vals as $key => $val) {
if($val === $new) $vname = $key;
}
$var = $old;
return $vname;
}
$testvar = "name";
echo get_var_name($testvar); // "testvar"
function testfunction() {
$var_in_function = "variable value";
return get_var_name($var_in_function, get_defined_vars());
}
echo testfunction(); // "var_in_function"
class testclass {
public $testproperty;
public function __constructor() {
$this->testproperty = "property value";
}
}
$testobj = new testclass();
echo get_var_name($testobj->testproperty, $testobj); // "testproperty"

Access array returned by a function in php

I'm using a template engine that inserts code in my site where I want it.
I wrote a function to test for something which is quite easy:
myfunction() { return '($this->data["a"]["b"] ? true : false)'; }
The problem is, $this->data is private, and I can't access it everywhere, so I have to use getData(); which causes my problem.
$this->getData()['a']['b']
does not work, and assigning the value first doesn't either because it will be used directly in an if() block.
Any ideas?
Since PHP 5.4 it's possible to do exactly that:
getSomeArray()[2]
Reference: https://secure.php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php#example-62
On PHP 5.3 or earlier, you'll need to use a temporary variable.
You cannot use something like this :
$this->getData()['a']['b']
ie, array-access syntax is not possible directly on a function-call.
Youy have to use some temporary variable, like this :
$tmp = $this->getData();
$tmp['a']['b'] // use $tmp, now
In your case, this probably means using something like this :
function myfunction() {
$tmp = $this->getData();
return ($tmp['a']['b'] ? true : false);
}
You have to :
first, call your getData() method, and store its return value in a temporary varibale
then, use that temporary variable for your test
You don't have much choice about that, actually...
Ok... apparently there really isn't a better way, so I'm going to answer myself with a not so beautiful solution:
I created the function:
arrayGet($array, $index) { return $array[$index]; }
And used it like this:
myfunction() { return '(arrayGet(arrayGet($this, "a"), "b") ? true : false)' }
This is not pretty but works.
$this->data is always accessible, if it is protected. $object->data is not accessible from everywhere, so if you're returning $this in your code, and it is evaluated as such, it should be ok.
Btw, there is a bug in your code: The quotes need to be escaped.
myfunction() { return '($this->data[\'a\'][\'b\'] ? true : false)'; }
It is possible from PHP version 5.4.
If you don't want a temporary variable for that and your PHP version is less, than 5.4, than you still can use a few built in functions to get the first or the last element:
$x = 'first?last';
$first = array_shift(explode('?', $x));
$last = end(explode('?', $x));
$last2 = array_pop(explode('?', $x));
Edit:
!!! Please note, that in later versions( 5.4+ ) PHP will throw a notice, because end only expects variables as parameter.

PHP: Variable in a function name

I want to trigger a function based on a variable.
function sound_dog() { return 'woof'; }
function sound_cow() { return 'moo'; }
$animal = 'cow';
print sound_{$animal}(); *
The * line is the line that's not correct.
I've done this before, but I can't find it. I'm aware of the potential security problems, etc.
Anyone? Many thanks.
You can do that, but not without interpolating the string first:
$animfunc = 'sound_' . $animal;
print $animfunc();
Or, skip the temporary variable with call_user_func():
call_user_func('sound_' . $animal);
You can do it like this:
$animal = 'cow';
$sounder = "sound_$animal";
print ${sounder}();
However, a much better way would be to use an array:
$sounds = array('dog' => sound_dog, 'cow' => sound_cow);
$animal = 'cow';
print $sounds[$animal]();
One of the advantages of the array method is that when you come back to your code six months later and wonder "gee, where is this sound_cow function used?" you can answer that question with a simple text search instead of having to follow all the logic that creates variable function names on the fly.
http://php.net/manual/en/functions.variable-functions.php
To do your example, you'd do
$animal_function = "sound_$animal";
$animal_function();
You can use curly brackets to build your function name. Not sure of backwards compatibility, but at least PHP 7+ can do it.
Here is my code when using Carbon to add or subtract time based on user chosen type (of 'add' or 'sub'):
$type = $this->date->calculation_type; // 'add' or 'sub'
$result = $this->contactFields[$this->date->{'base_date_field'}]
->{$type.'Years'}( $this->date->{'calculation_years'} )
->{$type.'Months'}( $this->date->{'calculation_months'} )
->{$type.'Weeks'}( $this->date->{'calculation_weeks'} )
->{$type.'Days'}( $this->date->{'calculation_days'} );
The important part here is the {$type.'someString'} sections. This will generate the function name before executing it. So in the first case if the user has chosen 'add', {$type.'Years'} becomes addYears.
For PHP >= 7 you can use this way:
function sound_dog() { return 'woof'; }
function sound_cow() { return 'moo'; }
$animal = 'cow';
print ("sound_$animal")();
You should ask yourself why you need to be doing this, perhaps you need to refactor your code to something like the following:
function animal_sound($type){
$animals=array();
$animals['dog'] = "woof";
$animals['cow'] = "moo";
return $animals[$type];
}
$animal = "cow";
print animal_sound($animal);
You can use $this-> and self:: for class-functions. Example provided below with a function input-parameter.
$var = 'some_class_function';
call_user_func(array($this, $var), $inputValue);
// equivalent to: $this->some_class_function($inputValue);
And yet another solution to what I like to call the dog-cow problem. This will spare a lot of superfluous function names and definitions and is perfect PHP syntax and probably future proof:
$animal = 'cow';
$sounds = [
'dog' => function() { return 'woof'; },
'cow' => function() { return 'moo'; }
];
print ($sounds[$animal])();
and looks a little bit less like trickery as the "string to function names" versions.
JavaScript devs might prefer this one for obvious reasons.
(tested on Windows, PHP 7.4.0 Apache 2.4)

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