On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 10:51:38AM -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote: > On Mon, 22 Mar 2010, Richard Quadling wrote: > > > Depending upon what is being included, an autoloader could help > > here. > > > > The main payoffs for autoloading are reduced memory footprint (class > > are loaded JIT) and no need for each class to know exactly where the > > other classes are. > > > > So, your main page needs to load the autoloader and the autoloader > > handles the loading of the classes. > > > > No need to change the include_path setting. > > ok, i'm looking at the PHP manual page for autoload, sample: > > function __autoload($class_name) > { > require_once $class_name . '.php'; > } > > and some obvious questions suggest themselves: > > 1) in as simple an example as above, does the include_path still > control the search? since i'm not doing anything fancy above in terms > of specifying *where* that class is defined, it seems that i'll still > have the same problem to solve, no? Yep and yep. > > 2) i'm guessing that i can make the __autoload function as > sophisticated as i want, in that i can have it consult an environment > variable to determine where to search, but i'm still unsure as to how > i can set an environment variable to be consulted on the "server" > side. > That's the key. You can do anything you want inside __autoload(). If you must consult something in the environment, there are a couple of ways to do it. First, set a variable in the $_SESSION array, and consult it in __autoload(). Second, use a configuration file for your application. Have it in a stable place, and read the values out of it as needed. Consult these in your __autoload() if you like. Paul -- Paul M. Foster -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php