PHP how to 'include' code in the body of a

Question

I have a Symfony2 Controller in which I want to include a file containing common functions. However, when I use the require statement I get an error saying that the require was unexpected. Also, in PHPStorm, I also get a error saying that only functions can be declared where I have my require statement.

Here is an overview of my code:

<?php
namespace AppBundle\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Session;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use ReCaptcha\ReCaptcha;

class MyController extends Controller {

    private $salt_length = 10;

    private $resources;
    private $request;
    private $session;
    private $message;
    private $loggedin;

    /**
     * @Route("/My/home")
     */
    //
    // My home page
    //
    public function homeAction() {

       // bla bla

    }

    require 'utilities.php'; // <<==============

}
?>

The require at the end of my class produces the compiler error.

I'd rather not create another bundle and 'use' it because I want the scope of MyController class to be in effect when the functions in the utility.php are called.

Is there another preprocessor directive that does include the content of a file in another to achieve what I'm trying to do?

Oddly, when I look up include and require the php manual and w3schools php pages seem to say that you can use include/require to do exactly what I'm trying to do here.

Thank you in advance for any help someone can give me on this.

Answer 1

You can put whatever code you want outside the class definition and it will run when the class is loaded. I prefer creating a class of static helper functions instead of just global functions if you want to include non-class related helper type functions that have no state.

To note:

• If inside utilities.php is an actual class or classes, do the right thing and registier an autoloader instead.
• Use require_once instead of require

It's messy and I don't recommended it, but:

 <?php
    namespace AppBundle\Controller;

    use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
    use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
    use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Session;
    use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
    use ReCaptcha\ReCaptcha;

    require_once  'utilities.php'; // <<==============

    class MyController extends Controller {

        ....

Answer 2

What you might be looking for are traits:

http://php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.traits.php

Using traits allows you to load additional functionality to your class.

<?php

namespace AppBundle\Traits;

trait UtilityTrait {
    public function doStuff() {
        return 'stuff';
    }
}
?>

---

<?php

namespace AppBundle\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Session\Session;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use ReCaptcha\ReCaptcha;
use AppBundle\Traits\UtilityTrait;

class MyController extends Controller {
    use UtilityTrait;

    ....
}