PHP5. Two ways of declaring an array as a class member

Question

When declaring an array as a class member, which way should it be done?

class Test1 {
    private $paths = array();

    public function __construct() {
                 


        

Answer 1

In general, because I write mostly in other languages besides PHP, I like to declare my instance variables outside of the constructor. This let's me look at the top of a class and get an idea for all properties and their access modifiers without having to read the code.

For example, I really don't like methods like this

// ...
// whole bunch of code
// ...
public function initialize() {
    $this->foo = array();
    // some other code to add some stuff to foo
}

Now, if I just look at the class, I can't be sure there is a variable foo even available. If there is, I don't know if I have access to it from anywhere outside the instance.

If instead I have:

public $foo = array();

at the top of my class, I know that foo is an instance property, and that I can access it from elsewhere.