Autoload classes from different folders

Question

This is how I autoload all the classes in my controllers folder,

# auto load controller classes
    function __autoload($class_name) 
    {
             


        

Answer 1

You should name your classes so the underscore (_) translates to the directory separator (/). A few PHP frameworks do this, such as Zend and Kohana.

So, you name your class Model_Article and place the file in classes/model/article.php and then your autoload does...

function __autoload($class_name) 
{
    $filename = str_replace('_', DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, strtolower($class_name)).'.php';

    $file = AP_SITE.$filename;

    if ( ! file_exists($file))
    {
        return FALSE;
    }
    include $file;
}

Also note you can use spl_autoload_register() to make any function an autoloading function. It is also more flexible, allowing you to define multiple autoload type functions.

If there must be multiple autoload functions, spl_autoload_register() allows for this. It effectively creates a queue of autoload functions, and runs through each of them in the order they are defined. By contrast, __autoload() may only be defined once.

Edit

Note : __autoload has been DEPRECATED as of PHP 7.2.0. Relying on this feature is highly discouraged. Please refer to PHP documentation for more details. http://php.net/manual/en/function.autoload.php