PHP and Enumerations

Question

I know that PHP doesn\'t have native Enumerations. But I have become accustomed to them from the Java world. I would love to use enums as a way to give predefined values whi

Answer 1

Pointed out solution works well. Clean and smooth.

However, if you want strongly typed enumerations, you can use this:

class TestEnum extends Enum
{
    public static $TEST1;
    public static $TEST2;
}
TestEnum::init(); // Automatically initializes enum values

With an Enum class looking like:

class Enum
{
    public static function parse($enum)
    {
        $class = get_called_class();
        $vars = get_class_vars($class);
        if (array_key_exists($enum, $vars)) {
            return $vars[$enum];
        }
        return null;
    }

    public static function init()
    {
        $className = get_called_class();
        $consts = get_class_vars($className);
        foreach ($consts as $constant => $value) {
            if (is_null($className::$$constant)) {
                $constantValue = $constant;
                $constantValueName = $className . '::' . $constant . '_VALUE';
                if (defined($constantValueName)) {
                    $constantValue = constant($constantValueName);
                }
                $className::$$constant = new $className($constantValue);
            }
        }
    }

    public function __construct($value)
    {
        $this->value = $value;
    }
}

This way, enum values are strongly typed and

TestEnum::$TEST1 === TestEnum::parse('TEST1') // true statement