Talk:Reflective programming: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:32, 19 July 2017

Revision as of 00:39, 22 January 2018

Line 321:

Would be nice if all examples could be in one place shown as tabs, like MSDN articles do.

When printing the currently selected/visible one could be printed instead of everything <small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/213.16.221.149|213.16.221.149]] ([[User talk:213.16.221.149|talk]]) 14:54, 4 March 2015 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

== PHP example - variable variable syntax ==

The PHP example currently contains this section:

<pre>

// With reflection, using variable variables syntax

$className = 'Foo';

$foo = new $className();

$method = 'hello';

$foo->$method();

</pre>

Now, as far as I can see, this method isn't really an example of reflection but it is rather a language feature that allows you to reference a symbol indirectly via a variable. As such it is very similar to taking the approach in Javascript (for example) of using indexing on the global object rather than direct references, e.g. translating `new Foo()` to `new window['Foo']()`. Specific reasons I don't believe this qualifies as reflection:

* It doesn't allow introspection, only indirection.

* You can't get a list of available classes using this technique.

* Given a class name, you can't tell if it exists or not (other than by attempting to create one and catching the exception if that fails).

* Given a class name, you can't get a list of its methods (other than by instantiating it, and examining the resulting object to find out its properties, which you would need to do using an *actual* reflection API, rather than this technique).

I'm therefore not convinced that this example belongs here. It's an interesting hack, and a useful, simple way of creating dynamic behaviour, but due to lacking facilities for introspection, I'm not convinced it's an example of *Reflection*. Opinions? [[User:JulesH|JulesH]] ([[User talk:JulesH|talk]]) 00:39, 22 January 2018 (UTC)