Matching variables and DB columns

One frequent use for PHP objects in database-driven systems is as a wrapper around the entire database API. The theory is that the wrapper insulates the code from the specific database system, which will…

Sleeping and waking up in PHP

PHP provides a hook mechanism so that objects can specify what should happen just before serialization and just after unserialization. The special member function __sleep() (that’s two underscores before…

Serialization of data in PHP

Serialization of data means converting it into a string of bytes in such a way that you can produce the original data again from the string (via a process known, unsurprisingly, as unserialization). After…

Simulating method overloading

One neat trick offered by some OOP languages (and not offered by PHP) is automatic overloading of member functions.

Do Web-Scripting Languages Really Need OOP?

The object-oriented revolution has not been without controversy. Although many programmers embraced OOP quickly, others preferred the procedural approach they were used to and wondered aloud if the extra…