Autoloading objects – an overview

One of my amigo last week put up a question towards me seeking a clear riposte on what’s exactly this autoloading does. I thought of putting this up here on what i scribbled in the piece of paper to explain him.

What is Autoloading objects?

How about we including the classes automatically. puzzled right! Normally to include a class, you would go on with either ( include or require ) languager construct. By using __autoload function defined, inclusion will handle itself. I will explain you clearly further citing the traditional way as well as new approach.

Traditionally we would go in this fashion

include “classes/class.vinoth.php”;

$vinoth = new Vinoth;
$vinoth->methodname();

With our new approach….

function __autoload($class_name)
{
require_once $DOCUMENT_ROOT.“classes/class.”.$class_name.“.php”;
}
$vinoth = new Vinoth;
$vinoth->methodname();

Here, if Vinoth is created for the first time then the __autoload function is called automatically.Normally everydevelopers follow their own style of coding. I have used autoload in a different fashion irrespective of the listed above. I normally set the ini_set or set_include_path before hand and make the __autoload function much simpler just including the class name.

Note: We can also make throw expections instead of fatal error, if the classes are not loaded.

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