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

I have taken to using the approach below as it gives me the ability to have type safety for function parameters, auto complete in NetBeans and good performance. The one thing I don't like too much is that you have to call [extended class name]::enumerate(); after defining the class.

abstract class Enum {

    private $_value;

    protected function __construct($value) {
        $this->_value = $value;
    }

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

    public static function enumerate() {
        $class = get_called_class();
        $ref = new ReflectionClass($class);
        $statics = $ref->getStaticProperties();
        foreach ($statics as $name => $value) {
            $ref->setStaticPropertyValue($name, new $class($value));
        }
    }
}

class DaysOfWeek extends Enum {
    public static $MONDAY = 0;
    public static $SUNDAY = 1;
    // etc.
}
DaysOfWeek::enumerate();

function isMonday(DaysOfWeek $d) {
    if ($d == DaysOfWeek::$MONDAY) {
        return true;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}

$day = DaysOfWeek::$MONDAY;
echo (isMonday($day) ? "bummer it's monday" : "Yay! it's not monday");