[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #18510: Class properties dbpassword, dbname, dbhost and dbh are undefined in wpdb

[WordPress Trac]

#18510: Class properties dbpassword, dbname, dbhost and dbh are undefined in wpdb
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 Reporter:  joelhardi    |      Owner:
     Type:  enhancement  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal       |  Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Database     |    Version:  3.3
 Severity:  minor        |   Keywords:  dev-feedback has-patch
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 The class members `$dbuser`, `$dbpassword`, `$dbname`, `$dbhost` and
 `$dbh` are set by wpdb's constructor but only one of these ($dbuser, since
 2.9.0) is declared with a `var` statement.

 I think these should be explicitly declared, both for basic documentation
 and to declare their visibility so developers know what they can use. I
 know in the past there have been issues with developers using supposedly
 private properties/methods, which then turns into a defacto API that is
 hard to deprecate. In this case, these properties aren't marked private
 and are just magically created in `__construct` without any documentation
 as far as I can tell.

 Personally I don't care whether they are declared using `var` and marked
 as private or declared as `private/protected`. I would prefer explicit
 `private` but the rest of wpdb still looks PHP4 so I've used `var`
 statements in the attached patch.

 What I propose is for these properties to be private, since they are
 passed at runtime to the constructor and immediately used to establish a
 database connection (`$dbh`). Subsequently changing the value  of
 `$wpdb->dbhost`, for example, doesn't alter the existing database
 connection (`$wpdb->db_connect()` would have to be re-run to do that).
 Also, `$dbuser` is already labeled private so this is consistent.

 Although private, I think these properties could/should have getters so
 that they're effectively read-only public. In particular, there needs to
 be a getter for the database connection handle `$dbh` (I'm a plugin author
 and I currently grab `$wpdb->dbh` to access the database) if it's going to
 be private. In the patch I've added a getter (`get_db_connect()`, but I
 don't really care what the method is called).

 '''A little more background:''' In an analogous situation, previously I
 used `$wpdb->prefix` to retrieve the !WordPress table prefix, but since
 3.0 there is a getter, `get_blog_prefix()`, for this (and simply
 retrieving `$wpdb->prefix` isn't compatible with multisite, so that "old"
 API is broken). So this is why I suggest giving wpdb a clearer API. Other
 people may have suggestions, and if the task is blessed I could give wpdb
 a deeper look (another thing that might be helpful would be to add an
 interface). But I thought I'd submit this minor enhancement first.

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/18510>
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