PHP Initialize class variables without Constructor

Question

I have the following class,e.g.

class A{
 public var1;
 public var2;
}

now, I want to create an object of this class, and I do the following:

$a = new A();
$a->var1 = 123;
$a->var2 = 987;

Is there a more better way to do this, since at times there can be even 20 such variables inside the class. I am just looking for compacting the code, and a constructor is not being used for this class. The values for variables are not static (that is why no static keyword is used)

I am looking more for this kind of assignment we do for arrays:

$arr = array(
'var1' => 123,
'var2' => 987
);

Furthermore, how will I go around avoiding NullPointerException (which sometimes comes up when I try to send this object to a .Net enabled web service) - This is optional though, as I can atlst relate this to null variables inside the class, but not exactly sure how to overcome this error.

Chestone · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-03 22:20:38Z

1

Well the constructor could accept an array of parameters containing the values for these class variables which you set to the class variables inside the constructor. To avoid a null, just assign every class variable you declare to some basic value such as empty string, any value that you don't care about.

answered Dec 3, 2010 at 22:20

Chestone

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2 Comments

Stoic Over a year ago

hmm... but I can not add constructors to the classes.. I have around 100 such classes with most classes having around 5+ variables. Thanks for the null value issue - I was thinking along the same lines.

Chestone Over a year ago

Extend the classes and then override their constructor? Is that possible? Or add a setParams method of some sort so you can pass them in bulk after creation.

simshaun · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-03 22:19:00Z

0

Is there a better way to assign values to properties of a class? Well, there are multiple ways, but one is not necessarily better than the other, and they are all going to involve a similar amount of code to accomplish.

Can't answer your .NET question; I'm not familiar with it.

answered Dec 3, 2010 at 22:19

simshaun

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2 Comments

Stoic Over a year ago

I have provided an example of what I am looking for. Any clues, please?

Stoic Over a year ago

hmm not exactly what I am looking for, but yeah.. that does led me to create a function which will help me through this... jsbin.com/anapo3/2/edit

MAChitgarha · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-10 23:39:22Z

0

You can use PHP8's Constructor Property Promotion:

class A
{
    public function __construct(
        public $var1,
        public $var2,
        // Maybe more variables here
    ) {}
}

Cool enough. You create a class with its properties, and at the same time you initialize them in the constructor.

For more information, see the related RFC.

answered Aug 10, 2021 at 23:39

MAChitgarha

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