strategies for managing long class files in php

Question

I\'ve got a bunch of functions that I want to move into a class. They\'re currently split into a couple of fairly long files. I\'d prefer not to have one 2500 line file, but as

Answer 1

If you want to do OOP, separate the concerns and encapsulate them into appropriate classes. Combine them either by extending them or by composition or better aggregation. Remove any duplicate code. Dont repeat yourself.

In your case, separate the stuff that is about any Form from the stuff that is about your specific form. The code that can be used for any Form is the code you want to place into a generic Form class. You can reuse this in later projects. For an example of a very complex Form class, check out Zend_Form.

Anything in your code related to the/a specific form gets into a class of it's own that extends the generic form. Assuming from the type property given in your code, you might end up with multiple special purpose form classes (instead of one-type-fits-all-form), which will likely eliminate the complexity from the getSection methods and make your code a lot easier to maintain because you can concentrate on what a specific type of form is supposed to look like and do.

Lastly, if you got code in there that fetches data for the form from within the form or is otherwise not directly related to form building, remove it and make it into a separate class. Remember, you want to separate concerns and your form classes' concern is to build a form, not get it's data or something. Data is something you will want to pass to the form through the constructor or a dedicated setter.