PHP 5 Unleashed

Chapter 13. Object-Oriented Programming in PHP

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Why Objects?

• Creating Basic Classes

• Advanced Classes

• Special Methods

• Class Autoloading

• Object Serialization

• Exceptions

• Iterators

Why Objects?

As scripts become more and more complex, the difficulty of maintaining them increases dramatically—especially if you are programming in a procedural style. The concept of object-oriented programming (OOP) is to provide a real organizational structure to your scripts through encapsulation. Although PHP 4 introduced the notion of OOP into PHP, it could not be considered a true OO implementation. Because of the significant limitations in PHP 4 in this respect, the object model in PHP 5 has been completely redesigned to more accurately reflect the academic ...