NAMESPACE_SEPARATOR constant
- by ts
Hello,
Having namespaces in PHP is great. Having '\' as namespace separator is a little bit ... awkward (but if there is someone who thinks that is cool & sexy, I am adding tag "rant" to this post. ;) .
So, here goes the question:
Are you using in your code NAMESPACE_SEPARATOR constant? As in code below:
<?php
if (!\defined('NAMESPACE_SEPARATOR') {
\define('NAMESPACE_SEPARATOR', '\\');
} // if
Pros:
consistent with DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR (which all of us are using ;)
no mess with escaping (think of '\Foo\Bar' but '\\' . Foo' . '\\' . 'Bar')
more readable (IMHO)
which gives us in effect an opportunity to write good, namespace-aware autoloaders
can resist another change if something scary happens (as with ol'good '::' from PHP 6 alpha)
can hide uniquess of '\' as namespace operator in programming language land from strangers ;)
Cons:
"The reason for DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR is that the value is platform dependent, the namespace separator isn't." (as stated in http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=43046)
19 characters instead of 1 ( \ ) or 4 ('\\')
There are places where you can't use this (full qualified class names as default class variables) ie:
class A {
protected $sDefaultReporterClass = '\My\Namespace\DefaultReporter';
}
So, what are you thinking ?
