Best place to instantiate new object

[dgruetter]

Hi,

 

I am trying to find the best location to instantiate a new object in my code. My old method was to instantiate a new object at the bottom of the class declaration.

 

class Messenger () {

//class structure

}//Close class

$messenger = new Messenger();

 

I just built an initialize script to simplify all the requires. It also has an autoload function for classes like messenger that might not need to be required and instantiated on every page

 

function __autoload($class_name) {
global $MODELS_DIR;


    require ($MODELS_DIR . $class_name . '.php');

}

 

The problem is that if I instantiate a new class Messenger() at the end of my class declaration, it will never autoload... because I am not calling for a new Class() in my code.

 

So should I continue to instantiate at the end of the class declaration of always instantiate it in my code?

 

Not sure if it's worth mentioning but I plan on moving my code to a MVC framework in the future.

 

Oh yeah, I am also using PHP 5.29 ... I think

[requinix]

No. You shouldn't really be doing that at all.

 

Autoloading only happens when you try to reference a class (like instantiating it or something else I forget) and if the class's file hasn't been included it. If you require() the file then try to instantiate it the autoloading stuff won't fire - it's already been loaded. Your class files should just have the class definition with very few exceptions. Make an autoloader using spl_register_autoload() (__autoload() is deprecated) that includes the appropriate file when the class is requested. Then every time you need the class you try to use it.

And if you only want one instance of a class around then you should be using a Singleton, not a pre-instantiated class.

[scootstah]

And if you only want one instance of a class around then you should be using a Singleton, not a pre-instantiated class.

 

Or Dependency Injection. Singletons are as bad as globals if you abuse them.

[dgruetter]

I was looking into using dependency injections as I read a great deal of issues with using global. I will most likely be using this method.

 

Thanks for the replies!