PHP and Enumerations

Question

I know that PHP doesn't have native Enumerations. But I have become accustomed to them from the Java world. I would love to use enums as a way to give predefined values which IDEs' auto completion features could understand.

Constants do the trick, but there's the namespace collision problem and (or actually because) they're global. Arrays don't have the namespace problem, but they're too vague, they can be overwritten at runtime and IDEs rarely (never?) know how to autofill their keys.

Are there any solutions/workarounds you commonly use? Does anyone recall whether the PHP guys have had any thoughts or decisions around enums?

Answer 1

What about class constants?

<?php

class YourClass
{
    const SOME_CONSTANT = 1;

    public function echoConstant()
    {
        echo self::SOME_CONSTANT;
    }
}

echo YourClass::SOME_CONSTANT;

$c = new YourClass;
$c->echoConstant();

Answer 2

I use interface instead of class:

interface DaysOfWeek
{
    const Sunday = 0;
    const Monday = 1;
    // etc.
}

var $today = DaysOfWeek::Sunday;

Answer 3

If you need to use enums that are globally unique (i.e. even when comparing elements between different Enums) and are easy to use, feel free to use the following code. I also added some methods that I find useful. You will find examples in the comments at the very top of the code.

<?php

/**
 * Class Enum
 * 
 * @author Christopher Fox <[e-mail]>
 *
 * @version 1.0
 *
 * This class provides the function of an enumeration.
 * The values of Enum elements are unique (even between different Enums)
 * as you would expect them to be.
 *
 * Constructing a new Enum:
 * ========================
 *
 * In the following example we construct an enum called "UserState"
 * with the elements "inactive", "active", "banned" and "deleted".
 * 
 * <code>
 * Enum::Create('UserState', 'inactive', 'active', 'banned', 'deleted');
 * </code>
 *
 * Using Enums:
 * ============
 *
 * The following example demonstrates how to compare two Enum elements
 *
 * <code>
 * var_dump(UserState::inactive == UserState::banned); // result: false
 * var_dump(UserState::active == UserState::active); // result: true
 * </code>
 *
 * Special Enum methods:
 * =====================
 *
 * Get the number of elements in an Enum:
 *
 * <code>
 * echo UserState::CountEntries(); // result: 4
 * </code>
 *
 * Get a list with all elements of the Enum:
 *
 * <code>
 * $allUserStates = UserState::GetEntries();
 * </code>
 *
 * Get a name of an element:
 *
 * <code>
 * echo UserState::GetName(UserState::deleted); // result: deleted
 * </code>
 *
 * Get an integer ID for an element (e.g. to store as a value in a database table):
 * This is simply the index of the element (beginning with 1).
 * Note that this ID is only unique for this Enum but now between different Enums.
 *
 * <code>
 * echo UserState::GetDatabaseID(UserState::active); // result: 2
 * </code>
 */
class Enum
{

    /**
     * @var Enum $instance The only instance of Enum (Singleton)
     */
    private static $instance;

    /**
     * @var array $enums    An array of all enums with Enum names as keys
     *          and arrays of element names as values
     */
    private $enums;

    /**
     * Constructs (the only) Enum instance
     */
    private function __construct()
    {
        $this->enums = array();
    }

    /**
     * Constructs a new enum
     *
     * @param string $name The class name for the enum
     * @param mixed $_ A list of strings to use as names for enum entries
     */
    public static function Create($name, $_)
    {
        // Create (the only) Enum instance if this hasn't happened yet
        if (self::$instance===null)
        {
            self::$instance = new Enum();
        }

        // Fetch the arguments of the function
        $args = func_get_args();
        // Exclude the "name" argument from the array of function arguments,
        // so only the enum element names remain in the array
        array_shift($args);
        self::$instance->add($name, $args);
    }

    /**
     * Creates an enumeration if this hasn't happened yet
     * 
     * @param string $name The class name for the enum
     * @param array $fields The names of the enum elements
     */
    private function add($name, $fields)
    {
        if (!array_key_exists($name, $this->enums))
        {
            $this->enums[$name] = array();

            // Generate the code of the class for this enumeration
            $classDeclaration =     "class " . $name . " {\n"
                        . "private static \$name = '" . $name . "';\n"
                        . $this->getClassConstants($name, $fields)
                        . $this->getFunctionGetEntries($name)
                        . $this->getFunctionCountEntries($name)
                        . $this->getFunctionGetDatabaseID()
                        . $this->getFunctionGetName()
                        . "}";

            // Create the class for this enumeration
            eval($classDeclaration);
        }
    }

    /**
     * Returns the code of the class constants
     * for an enumeration. These are the representations
     * of the elements.
     * 
     * @param string $name The class name for the enum
     * @param array $fields The names of the enum elements
     *
     * @return string The code of the class constants
     */
    private function getClassConstants($name, $fields)
    {
        $constants = '';

        foreach ($fields as $field)
        {
            // Create a unique ID for the Enum element
            // This ID is unique because class and variables
            // names can't contain a semicolon. Therefore we
            // can use the semicolon as a separator here.
            $uniqueID = $name . ";" . $field;
            $constants .=   "const " . $field . " = '". $uniqueID . "';\n";
            // Store the unique ID
            array_push($this->enums[$name], $uniqueID);
        }

        return $constants;
    }

    /**
     * Returns the code of the function "GetEntries()"
     * for an enumeration
     * 
     * @param string $name The class name for the enum
     *
     * @return string The code of the function "GetEntries()"
     */
    private function getFunctionGetEntries($name) 
    {
        $entryList = '';        

        // Put the unique element IDs in single quotes and
        // separate them with commas
        foreach ($this->enums[$name] as $key => $entry)
        {
            if ($key > 0) $entryList .= ',';
            $entryList .= "'" . $entry . "'";
        }

        return  "public static function GetEntries() { \n"
            . " return array(" . $entryList . ");\n"
            . "}\n";
    }

    /**
     * Returns the code of the function "CountEntries()"
     * for an enumeration
     * 
     * @param string $name The class name for the enum
     *
     * @return string The code of the function "CountEntries()"
     */
    private function getFunctionCountEntries($name) 
    {
        // This function will simply return a constant number (e.g. return 5;)
        return  "public static function CountEntries() { \n"
            . " return " . count($this->enums[$name]) . ";\n"
            . "}\n";
    }

    /**
     * Returns the code of the function "GetDatabaseID()"
     * for an enumeration
     * 
     * @return string The code of the function "GetDatabaseID()"
     */
    private function getFunctionGetDatabaseID()
    {
        // Check for the index of this element inside of the array
        // of elements and add +1
        return  "public static function GetDatabaseID(\$entry) { \n"
            . "\$key = array_search(\$entry, self::GetEntries());\n"
            . " return \$key + 1;\n"
            . "}\n";
    }

    /**
     * Returns the code of the function "GetName()"
     * for an enumeration
     *
     * @return string The code of the function "GetName()"
     */
    private function getFunctionGetName()
    {
        // Remove the class name from the unique ID 
        // and return this value (which is the element name)
        return  "public static function GetName(\$entry) { \n"
            . "return substr(\$entry, strlen(self::\$name) + 1 , strlen(\$entry));\n"
            . "}\n";
    }

}


?>

Answer 4

Yesterday I wrote this class on my blog. I think it's maybe be easy for use in php scripts:

final class EnumException extends Exception{}

abstract class Enum
{
    /**
     * @var array ReflectionClass
     */
    protected static $reflectorInstances = array();
    /**
     * Массив конфигурированного объекта-константы enum
     * @var array
     */
    protected static $enumInstances = array();
    /**
     * Массив соответствий значение->ключ используется для проверки - 
     * если ли константа с таким значением
     * @var array
     */
    protected static $foundNameValueLink = array();

    protected $constName;
    protected $constValue;

    /**
     * Реализует паттерн "Одиночка"
     * Возвращает объект константы, но но как объект его использовать не стоит, 
     * т.к. для него реализован "волшебный метод" __toString()
     * Это должно использоваться только для типизачии его как параметра
     * @paradm Node
     */
    final public static function get($value)
    {
        // Это остается здесь для увеличения производительности (по замерам ~10%)
        $name = self::getName($value);
        if ($name === false)
            throw new EnumException("Неизвестая константа");
        $className = get_called_class();    
        if (!isset(self::$enumInstances[$className][$name]))
        {
            $value = constant($className.'::'.$name);
            self::$enumInstances[$className][$name] = new $className($name, $value);
        }

        return self::$enumInstances[$className][$name];
    }

    /**
     * Возвращает массив констант пар ключ-значение всего перечисления
     * @return array 
     */
    final public static function toArray()
    {
        $classConstantsArray = self::getReflectorInstance()->getConstants();
        foreach ($classConstantsArray as $k => $v)
            $classConstantsArray[$k] = (string)$v;
        return $classConstantsArray;
    }

    /**
     * Для последующего использования в toArray для получения массива констант ключ->значение 
     * @return ReflectionClass
     */
    final private static function getReflectorInstance()
    {
        $className = get_called_class();
        if (!isset(self::$reflectorInstances[$className]))
        {
            self::$reflectorInstances[$className] = new ReflectionClass($className);
        }
        return self::$reflectorInstances[$className];
    }

    /**
     * Получает имя константы по её значению
     * @param string $value
     */
    final public static function getName($value)
    {
        $className = (string)get_called_class();

        $value = (string)$value;
        if (!isset(self::$foundNameValueLink[$className][$value]))
        {
            $constantName = array_search($value, self::toArray(), true);
            self::$foundNameValueLink[$className][$value] = $constantName;
        }
        return self::$foundNameValueLink[$className][$value];
    }

    /**
     * Используется ли такое имя константы в перечислении
     * @param string $name
     */
    final public static function isExistName($name)
    {
        $constArray = self::toArray();
        return isset($constArray[$name]);
    }

    /**
     * Используется ли такое значение константы в перечислении
     * @param string $value
     */
    final public static function isExistValue($value)
    {
        return self::getName($value) === false ? false : true;
    }   


    final private function __clone(){}

    final private function __construct($name, $value)
    {
        $this->constName = $name;
        $this->constValue = $value;
    }

    final public function __toString()
    {
        return (string)$this->constValue;
    }
}

Usage:

class enumWorkType extends Enum
{
        const FULL = 0;
        const SHORT = 1;
}

Answer 5

I found this library on github and I think it provides a very decent alternative to the answers here.

PHP Enum implementation inspired from SplEnum

• You can type-hint: function setAction(Action $action) {
• You can enrich the enum with methods (e.g. format, parse, …)
• You can extend the enum to add new values (make your enum final to prevent it)
• You can get a list of all the possible values (see below)

Declaration

<?php
use MyCLabs\Enum\Enum;

/**
 * Action enum
 */
class Action extends Enum
{
    const VIEW = 'view';
    const EDIT = 'edit';
}

Usage

<?php
$action = new Action(Action::VIEW);

// or
$action = Action::VIEW();

type-hint enum values:

<?php
function setAction(Action $action) {
    // ...
}

Answer 6

I've commented on some of the other answers here, so I figured I would weigh in too. At the end of the day, since PHP doesn't support typed enumerations, you can go one of two ways: hack out typed enumerations, or live with the fact that they're extremely difficult to hack out effectively.

I prefer to live with the fact, and instead use the const method that other answers here have used in some way or another:

abstract class Enum
{

    const NONE = null;

    final private function __construct()
    {
        throw new NotSupportedException(); // 
    }

    final private function __clone()
    {
        throw new NotSupportedException();
    }

    final public static function toArray()
    {
        return (new ReflectionClass(static::class))->getConstants();
    }

    final public static function isValid($value)
    {
        return in_array($value, static::toArray());
    }

}

An example enumeration:

final class ResponseStatusCode extends Enum
{

    const OK                         = 200;
    const CREATED                    = 201;
    const ACCEPTED                   = 202;
    // ...
    const SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE        = 503;
    const GATEWAY_TIME_OUT           = 504;
    const HTTP_VERSION_NOT_SUPPORTED = 505;

}

Using Enum as a base class from which all other enumerations extend allows for helper methods, such as toArray, isValid, and so on. To me, typed enumerations (and managing their instances) just end up too messy.

---

Hypothetical

If, there existed a __getStatic magic method (and preferably an __equals magic method too) much of this could be mitigated with a sort of multiton pattern.

(The following is hypothetical; it won't work, though perhaps one day it will)

final class TestEnum
{

    private static $_values = [
        'FOO' => 1,
        'BAR' => 2,
        'QUX' => 3,
    ];
    private static $_instances = [];

    public static function __getStatic($name)
    {
        if (isset(static::$_values[$name]))
        {
            if (empty(static::$_instances[$name]))
            {
                static::$_instances[$name] = new static($name);
            }
            return static::$_instances[$name];
        }
        throw new Exception(sprintf('Invalid enumeration value, "%s"', $name));
    }

    private $_value;

    public function __construct($name)
    {
        $this->_value = static::$_values[$name];
    }

    public function __equals($object)
    {
        if ($object instanceof static)
        {
            return $object->_value === $this->_value;
        }
        return $object === $this->_value;
    }

}

$foo = TestEnum::$FOO; // object(TestEnum)#1 (1) {
                       //   ["_value":"TestEnum":private]=>
                       //   int(1)
                       // }

$zap = TestEnum::$ZAP; // Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message
                       // 'Invalid enumeration member, "ZAP"'

$qux = TestEnum::$QUX;
TestEnum::$QUX == $qux; // true
'hello world!' == $qux; // false