PHP and Enumerations

Question

I know that PHP doesn\'t have native Enumerations. But I have become accustomed to them from the Java world. I would love to use enums as a way to give predefined values whi

Answer 1

Four years later I came across this again. My current approach is this as it allows for code completion in the IDE as well as type safety:

Base class:

abstract class TypedEnum
{
    private static $_instancedValues;

    private $_value;
    private $_name;

    private function __construct($value, $name)
    {
        $this->_value = $value;
        $this->_name = $name;
    }

    private static function _fromGetter($getter, $value)
    {
        $reflectionClass = new ReflectionClass(get_called_class());
        $methods = $reflectionClass->getMethods(ReflectionMethod::IS_STATIC | ReflectionMethod::IS_PUBLIC);    
        $className = get_called_class();

        foreach($methods as $method)
        {
            if ($method->class === $className)
            {
                $enumItem = $method->invoke(null);

                if ($enumItem instanceof $className && $enumItem->$getter() === $value)
                {
                    return $enumItem;
                }
            }
        }

        throw new OutOfRangeException();
    }

    protected static function _create($value)
    {
        if (self::$_instancedValues === null)
        {
            self::$_instancedValues = array();
        }

        $className = get_called_class();

        if (!isset(self::$_instancedValues[$className]))
        {
            self::$_instancedValues[$className] = array();
        }

        if (!isset(self::$_instancedValues[$className][$value]))
        {
            $debugTrace = debug_backtrace();
            $lastCaller = array_shift($debugTrace);

            while ($lastCaller['class'] !== $className && count($debugTrace) > 0)
            {
                $lastCaller = array_shift($debugTrace);
            }

            self::$_instancedValues[$className][$value] = new static($value, $lastCaller['function']);
        }

        return self::$_instancedValues[$className][$value];
    }

    public static function fromValue($value)
    {
        return self::_fromGetter('getValue', $value);
    }

    public static function fromName($value)
    {
        return self::_fromGetter('getName', $value);
    }

    public function getValue()
    {
        return $this->_value;
    }

    public function getName()
    {
        return $this->_name;
    }
}

Example Enum:

final class DaysOfWeek extends TypedEnum
{
    public static function Sunday() { return self::_create(0); }    
    public static function Monday() { return self::_create(1); }
    public static function Tuesday() { return self::_create(2); }   
    public static function Wednesday() { return self::_create(3); }
    public static function Thursday() { return self::_create(4); }  
    public static function Friday() { return self::_create(5); }
    public static function Saturday() { return self::_create(6); }      
}

Example usage:

function saveEvent(DaysOfWeek $weekDay, $comment)
{
    // store week day numeric value and comment:
    $myDatabase->save('myeventtable', 
       array('weekday_id' => $weekDay->getValue()),
       array('comment' => $comment));
}

// call the function, note: DaysOfWeek::Monday() returns an object of type DaysOfWeek
saveEvent(DaysOfWeek::Monday(), 'some comment');

Note that all instances of the same enum entry are the same:

$monday1 = DaysOfWeek::Monday();
$monday2 = DaysOfWeek::Monday();
$monday1 === $monday2; // true

You can also use it inside of a switch statement:

function getGermanWeekDayName(DaysOfWeek $weekDay)
{
    switch ($weekDay)
    {
        case DaysOfWeek::Monday(): return 'Montag';
        case DaysOfWeek::Tuesday(): return 'Dienstag';
        // ...
}

You can also create an enum entry by name or value:

$monday = DaysOfWeek::fromValue(2);
$tuesday = DaysOfWeek::fromName('Tuesday');

Or you can just get the name (i.e. the function name) from an existing enum entry:

$wednesday = DaysOfWeek::Wednesday()
echo $wednesDay->getName(); // Wednesday