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

Here is a github library for handling type-safe enumerations in php:

This library handle classes generation, classes caching and it implements the Type Safe Enumeration design pattern, with several helper methods for dealing with enums, like retrieving an ordinal for enums sorting, or retrieving a binary value, for enums combinations.

The generated code use a plain old php template file, which is also configurable, so you can provide your own template.

It is full test covered with phpunit.

php-enums on github (feel free to fork)

Usage: (@see usage.php, or unit tests for more details)

getName()\n";
foreach (FruitsEnum::iterator() as $enum)
{
  echo "  " . $enum->getName() . "\n";
}

echo "->getValue()\n";
foreach (FruitsEnum::iterator() as $enum)
{
  echo "  " . $enum->getValue() . "\n";
}

echo "->getOrdinal()\n";
foreach (CachedFruitsEnum::iterator() as $enum)
{
  echo "  " . $enum->getOrdinal() . "\n";
}

echo "->getBinary()\n";
foreach (CachedFruitsEnum::iterator() as $enum)
{
  echo "  " . $enum->getBinary() . "\n";
}

Output:

FruitsEnum::APPLE() == FruitsEnum::APPLE(): bool(true)
FruitsEnum::APPLE() == FruitsEnum::ORANGE(): bool(false)
FruitsEnum::APPLE() instanceof Enum: bool(true)
FruitsEnum::APPLE() instanceof FruitsEnum: bool(true)
->getName()
  APPLE
  ORANGE
  RASBERRY
  BANNANA
->getValue()
  apple
  orange
  rasberry
  bannana
->getValue() when values have been specified
  pig
  dog
  cat
  bird
->getOrdinal()
  1
  2
  3
  4
->getBinary()
  1
  2
  4
  8