[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #22251: Helper function to simplify checking for constants

[WordPress Trac]

#22251: Helper function to simplify checking for constants
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 Reporter:  evansolomon  |       Owner:
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal       |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  General      |     Version:
 Severity:  normal       |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch    |
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Comment (by rmccue):

 Replying to [comment:10 MikeSchinkel]:
 > What is really wrong with allowing them to be set anywhere, in practice?
 After many years experience I'm still looking for a good reason that
 "constants" need to remain immutable.

 I completely agree, but I think if they're going to be uppercase, then
 they need to be only settable once so that they act like constants. That's
 why my personal preference would be to use lowercased properties just as
 normal properties.

 > Could you elaborate on the potential problems?

 That was for if they could only be set in `wp-config.php`, where I can see
 problems with using includes in the config causing the complicated setter
 stuff to fail. I think that's a complicated path, but I personally would
 prefer eliminating the constants and constant-like behaviour
 (immutability) in favour of simply using properties (also renaming some
 such as `$wp->db['host'] = 'localhost'` etc.). This could be done
 completely in a backwards compatible manner, since we're inventing these
 from scratch, so as long as they check for the constants as well, it
 should be fine, e.g.

 {{{
 class WP {
     public $db = array( 'host' => '', /* ... */ );

     // ...

     public function set_from_constants() {
         defined('DB_HOST') && $this->db['host'] = DB_HOST;
     }
 }}}

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/22251#comment:12>
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