autoload and multiple directories
autoload, php
Solution
You might want to take a look at the PEAR Convention for class names, which is really great for autoloading.
Basically, it states that :
The PEAR class hierarchy is also reflected in the class name, each level of the hierarchy separated with a single underscore.
Which means finding the file to include for a classe name `HTML_Upload_Error` is just a matter of replacing '_' by '/' ; giving you `HTML/Upload/Error.php`
For more explanations, and a couple of examples, you can take a look at the articles :
- Autoloading PHP Classes to Reduce CPU Usage
- Autoload Magic
BTW : this convention is used by many big Frameworks / libraries ;-) For instance, Zend Framework uses this convention -- and it's really helpful !
Problem
I've just been looking at php's autoload() function. Seems a nice idea, but I'm not sure how it handles multiple directories. My current development basically has a library directory structure grouping classes into subdirectories by operation. I'm wondering I have to declare a include() for each directory ... which I really hope I don't have to do. Can you advise - thanks