Class Sub-Directories Without Namespacing

[ginzmoney]

I currently maintain a large PHP (5.4) codebase w/ 500+ classes. We provide a custom client/application override structure that allows classes to be dynamically extended when necessary. All classes exist in the root lib/ directory, with sub-directories for each custom client (i.e. lib/foo/).

 

By utilizing __autoload() we instantiate the appropriate class at run time and class_alias it to the requested name (i.e. class bar extends bar_base)

 

I'd like to further organize the classes into appropriate sub-directories, but can't figure out a way to achieve that without namespacing. I don't want to sequentially scan all sub-dirs when instantiating an object, but can't think of a solid way to key the autoloader off to where the class exists. The one idea I've been playing with is naming the classes with leading underscores (_profiile_registration), but it seems hacky.

 

Any insight at all is appreciated.

[Christian F.]

If the files are sorted on a per-client basis, you might be able to do away with a lot of the naming with using constants.

That said, however, you really should be considering using namespaces here. This is exactly the thing they were added for, after all.

[ginzmoney]

I'm not a big fan of PHP Namespaces yet. It's still lacking some functionality that would make the conversion effort worthwhile for me. If there was a way to import the global namespace that would probably be worthwhile.