custom function patterns?

[blueman378]

Hi guys,

 

Well im making a form generator for my personal use so its customized to how i work,

 

anyway i was wondering if there is any way to make something like this

 

 

you have a class called formgenerator

 

you define $form1 = new formgenerator;

 

inside formgenerator you have a function called addelement

 

now heres wher it gets tricky you define what element you want to add

 

eg select

 

and then you define the parameters based off that

 

so something like

 

$form1->addelement("select(variables specific to select only here)");

 

so for example

 

$form1->addelement("select('countries', 'countrylist.php', '5', true)");

 

which is name, fillscript, size, multiselect

 

but then for a textbox

$form1->addelement("textbox('mytextbox', 'type something here', '25', '50', 'alpha')");

 

which is name, value, size, maxlength, validation type

 

any ideas how i could acomplish this as i dont want to have to call eg addselect(), addtextbox() addtextarea()

[genericnumber1]

You could have separate classes.. A form class, and then a class for each individual form element which you extend off of a base element class (or interface). This base element class could contain, among other things, an abstract function through which the form class can retrieve the html required to generate the element.

 

Something like this...

 

<?php
$form = new Form('post', 'mypage.php', 'whateverelseyouwant');
$textarea = new Textarea('mytextarea', 'whateverelseyouwant');
$input = new Input('myinput', 'whateverelseyouwant');

$form->attach($textarea);
$form->attach($input);

$form->render(); // form can call the render() (or whatever you want to name it) function the 
//attached elements implemented because of their abstract parent to retrieve their html and display it
?>

 

I realize this isn't too clear, but look up polymorphism and ask me if you'd like me to show you an actual implementation of this.

[blueman378]

i see what your saying sounds like a good idea,

 

although id like to keep it in as little files as possible.

 

what ive come up with is basically have

 

addelement()

 

with a whole pile of paramters named $param1 $param2 $param 3 ect

 

they all have the false attribute by default and i have as many as i will need at maximum,

 

then i have a switch which checks what the first attribute it branches off into the different code for each element so texbox might read param1 as valu but select might read it as fill.

 

that seems to be working

 

but now im at a part where i ask a completly different question.

 

the code makes a multidimetional array called elements

 

it looks like this:

 

Array ( 
  [0] => Array ( 
  [Type] => select
  [Name] => myname1
  [size] => mysize
  [Fill] => myfill
  [Multi] => no
  )

  [1] => Array (
  [Type] => select
  [Name] => myname2
  [size] => mysize
  [Fill] => myfill
  [Multi] => no
  )

  [2] => Array (
  [Type] => text
  [Name] => mytextbox
  [size] => 30
  [Maxl] => 50
  [Value] => -no-
  [Val] => alphanum
  )

  [3] => Array ( 
  [Type] => password 
  [Name] => mypassword 
  [size] => 30 
  [Maxl] => 50 
  [Value] => -no- 
  [Val] => alphanum 
  ) 
)

 

anyway how would i go about running a code on each second level array

 

to make eg the password one

<input type="password" name="mypassword" size="30" maxlength="50" value="">

 

(i would handle carrying the val part seperatly

 

im thinking i will need something like

 

<?php
	foreach ($this->elements as $value) {
		echo "<input ";
		foreach ($value as $paramater => $value2) {
		if($value2 != "-no-")
		{
    		echo "$paramater=\"$value2\" ";
    		}
		}
		echo ">\n";	
	}
?>

 

which would work for the text boxes/ password style things (i would make the others later)

 

but is there anyway to do this cleaner?

[genericnumber1]

Like I said, doing it the way I suggested. Object oriented programming is all about encapsulation, polymorphism and inheritance. Design consists of isolating what differs and visualizing what objects exist in the system.

 

Form elements aren't a form, they're in a form, and they differ wildly. It's not the form's job to know how the form elements illustrate themselves through HTML, it's the form elements themselves.