OOP: When should static classes be used?

[Markus]

Simple question: when should static classes be used?

[dlite922]

Simple question: when should static classes be used?

The best way for me to tell you is by example: Date class.

I've created my own date class that I don't always need to initialize an instance of. Perhaps I need the difference between two dates, a conversion in format.

The reason I started doing this is because I noticed in my general functions file I had over 10 functions that were all date related and decided to put them in a class and call it when I want.

echo Date::convertUS toMySQL($date = "04/30/2009", $includeTime = true)
// outputs: 2009-04-30 00:00:00

Resource:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/79b3xss3(VS.80).aspx

Cheers mate,



Dan

[Dormilich]

Simple question: when should static classes be used?

if you can't extend it (because you already extended another class) or don't want to have the class stored as property. commonly: if you need methods you can access everywhere (e.g. database classes, error classes, …)

[Markus]

Thanks, Dan and Dormilich.

A 'logging' class helped me understand it.

[Dormilich]

example: Registry Pattern (text is in German, but the source code is quite self-explanatory)

[dlite922]

example: Registry Pattern (text is in German, but the source code is quite self-explanatory)

This is an idea that I thought about for our Framework, Please remember to bring this up, if I forget. This could replace client.php config file altogether.