When should I declare variables in a PHP class?

Question

I\'m new to the OOP paradigm, so there\'s probably a simple explanation for this question...

Do you always need to declare public object-wide variables in a class? F

Answer 1

In general variables should be initialized as soon as you have enough info to do it properly.

If a class variable needs certain info to be sensibly initialized then that info should be passed to the constructor.

Using PHP's syntax to implicitly declare variables at the point of definition is, IMHO a surefire way to introduce bugs - if your class needs a variable then declare it, and use all of the information hiding that OOP affords you.