Syntax error with constants in PHP

Question

I'm trying to make a debugging class for one of my websites, something similar to the logger class in Java.

<?php

abstract class DebugLevel
{
    const Notice = 1;
    const Info = 2;
    const Warning = 4;
    const Fatal = 8;
}

class Debug
{
    private static $level = DebugLevel::Fatal | DebugLevel::Warning | DebugLevel::Info | DebugLevel::Notice;


}

?>

I get a Parse error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '|', expecting ',' or ';' in (script path) on line 13

What's wrong?

powtac · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-02 13:34:07Z

3

You can't add logic to a class property (variable) or constant in PHP.

From the documentation:

This declaration may include an initialization, but this initialization must be a constant value--that is, it must be able to be evaluated at compile time and must not depend on run-time information in order to be evaluated.

To set such a value use the __construct() function.

class Debug {

    public $level; // can not be a constant if you want to change it later!!!

    public function __construct() {
        $this->level = DebugLevel::Fatal | DebugLevel::Warning | DebugLevel::Info | DebugLevel::Notice;
    }

}

or maybe more elegant:

class Debug {

    public $level; // can not be a constant if you want to change it later!!!

    public function setLevel($level) {
        $this->level = $level;
    }

}

Then you can call this by:

$Debug = new Debug();
$Debug->setLevel(DebugLevel::Warning);

edited Dec 2, 2012 at 13:34

answered Nov 30, 2012 at 21:40

powtac

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3 Comments

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Over a year ago

So how can I do what I'm trying to do?

Madara's Ghost Over a year ago

@RiccardoBestetti: Use the __construct() function. We don't appreciate spoon-feeders here. Using __construct() is very straightforward.

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Over a year ago

When I posted the comment, he hadn't already written to use __construct().

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