Demystify PHP namespaces with practical examples. Master efficient code organization and avoid naming conflicts for streamlined web development.
Namespaces are qualifiers that solve two different problems:
For example, you may have a set of classes which describe an HTML table, such as Table, Row and Cell while also having another set of classes to describe furniture, such as Table, Chair and Bed. Namespaces can be used to organize the classes into two different groups while also preventing the two classes Table and Table from being mixed up.
Namespaces are declared at the beginning of a file using the namespace
keyword:
Declare a namespace called Html:
<?php
namespace Html;
?>
Note: A namespace
declaration must be the first thing in the PHP file. The following code would be invalid:
<?php
echo "Hello World!";
namespace Html;
...
?>
Constants, classes and functions declared in this file will belong to the Html namespace:
Create a Table class in the Html namespace:
<?php
namespace Html;
class Table {
public $title = "";
public $numRows = 0;
public function message() {
echo "<p>Table '{$this->title}' has {$this->numRows} rows.</p>";
}
}
$table = new Table();
$table->title = "My table";
$table->numRows = 5;
?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<?php
$table->message();
?>
</body>
</html>
For further organization, it is possible to have nested namespaces:
Declare a namespace called Html inside a namespace called Code:
<?php
namespace Code\Html;
?>
Any code that follows a namespace
declaration is operating inside the namespace, so classes that belong to the namespace can be instantiated without any qualifiers. To access classes from outside a namespace, the class needs to have the namespace attached to it.
Use classes from the Html namespace:
<?php
$table = new Html\Table();
$row = new Html\Row();
?>
When many classes from the same namespace are being used at the same time, it is easier to use the namespace
keyword:
Use classes from the Html namespace without the need for the Html\qualifier:
<?php
namespace Html;
$table = new Table();
$row = new Row();
?>
It can be useful to give a namespace or class an alias to make it easier to write. This is done with the use
keyword:
Give a namespace an alias:
<?php
use Html as H;
$table = new H\Table();
?>
Give a class an alias:
<?php
use Html\Table as T;
$table = new T();
?>
#php