If you're writing a class (or group of classes) into a file you include into your main application(s) in PHP, you'll be recommended to keep the included files out of the document path so that they can't be run on their own (or, more dangerous, browsed as text if you have a different extension applied to them). But there
is an alternative ...
If you code
if ($_SERVER[SCRIPT_FILENAME] == __FILE__) {
after your class code, and include some sample calls to your classes and their methods, youcan provide a very useful test harness and demonstration - writing code that shows your user how you intended your class to be used, and also letting him/her check that the installation is complete and is running correctly.
During today's
Object Oriented Programming in PHP training course, I wrote a complete example that showed a test harness (and also polymorphism, inheritance, statics, etc!) ... source code
[here]. There's also a very small application page
[here] which makes use of the classes in that file but ignores the test harness completely!
(written 2010-02-12, updated 2010-03-05)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
H112 - PHP - Further Web Page and Network Handling [220] When to use Frames - (2005-02-19)
[314] What language is this written in? - (2005-05-17)
[345] Spotting a denial of service attack - (2005-06-12)
[356] Sudoku helper or sudoku cheat - (2005-06-23)
[372] Time calculation in PHP - (2005-07-08)
[376] What brings people to my web site? - (2005-07-13)
[410] Reading a news or blog feed (RSS) in your PHP page - (2005-08-12)
[425] Caching an XML feed - (2005-08-26)
[443] Server side scripting of styles to suit the browser - (2005-09-12)
[451] Accessing a page via POST from within a PHP script - (2005-09-26)
[484] Setting the file name for a downloaded document - (2005-11-03)
[537] Daily Image Santafied - (2005-12-22)
[542] Morning image, afternoon image - (2005-12-26)
[565] Using PHP to output images, XML, Style sheets, etc - (2006-01-15)
[603] PHP - setting sort order with an associative array - (2006-02-13)
[675] Adding PHP tags to an old cgi program - (2006-04-08)
[767] Finding the language preference of a web site visitor - (2006-06-18)
[789] Hot answers in PHP - (2006-07-02)
[847] Image maps for navigation - a straightforward example - (2006-08-28)
[904] Of course I'll tell you by email - (2006-10-25)
[936] Global, Superglobal, Session variables - scope and persistance in PHP - (2006-11-21)
[1009] Passing GET parameters through Apache mod_rewrite - (2006-12-27)
[1114] PHP Image upload script - (2007-03-21)
[1183] Improving searches - from OR to AND? - (2007-05-11)
[1187] Updating a page strictly every minute (PHP, Perl) - (2007-05-14)
[1210] PHP header() function - uses and new restrictions - (2007-05-30)
[1355] .php or .html extension? Morally Static Pages - (2007-09-17)
[1379] Simple page password protection - PHP - (2007-10-04)
[1485] Copyright and theft of images, bandwidth and members. - (2007-12-26)
[1495] Single login and single threaded models - Java and PHP - (2008-01-04)
[1496] PHP / Web 2 logging - (2008-01-06)
[1505] Script to present commonly used images - PHP - (2008-01-13)
[1515] Keeping staff up to date on hotel room status - (2008-01-22)
[1518] Downloading data for use in Excel (from PHP / MySQL) - (2008-01-25)
[1549] http, https and ajp - comparison and choice - (2008-02-22)
[2679] How to build a test harness into your PHP - (2010-03-16)
[2729] Uploading a document or image to its own URL via a browser - (2010-04-18)
[2918] Downloading a report from the web for further local analysis - (2010-08-13)
[3036] Sending out an email containing HTML from within a PHP page - (2010-11-07)
[3432] 3 digit HTTP status codes - what are they, which are most common, which should be a concern? - (2011-09-11)
[3540] Easy session example in PHP - keeping each customers data apart - (2011-12-06)
[3568] Telling which ServerAlias your visitor used - useful during merging domains - (2012-01-04)
[3918] Multiple page web applications - maintaining state - PHP - (2012-11-10)
[4070] Passing variable between PHP pages - hidden fields, cookies and sessions - (2013-04-26)
[4483] Moving from mysql to mysqli - simple worked example - (2015-05-03)
H108 - Objects in PHP [67] Object Oriented Programming in PHP - (2004-09-29)
[124] PHP v Java - (2004-11-20)
[205] PHP5 lets you say no - (2005-02-07)
[343] Should I use structured or object oriented? - (2005-06-10)
[421] Don't repeat code - use loops or functions - (2005-08-21)
[485] North, Norther and Northest - PHP 5 Objects - (2005-11-04)
[656] Think about your design even if you don't use full UML - (2006-03-24)
[720] Planning a hotel refurb - an example of a Gant chart in PHP - (2006-05-14)
[836] Build on what you already have with OO - (2006-08-17)
[1027] Cue the music, I'm happy. - (2007-01-09)
[1153] Object Oriented Model - a summary of changes from PHP4 to PHP5 - (2007-04-18)
[1217] What are factory and singleton classes? - (2007-06-04)
[1535] OO PHP demonstration - comparing objects and more - (2008-02-08)
[1682] Accounts in PHP - an OO demo - (2008-06-19)
[1819] Calling base class constructors - (2008-10-03)
[1820] Sorting objects in PHP - (2008-10-04)
[1925] Introduction to Object Oriented Programming - (2008-12-06)
[2160] PHP - getclass v instanceof - (2009-05-07)
[2169] When should I use OO techniques? - (2009-05-11)
[2171] Cleaning up redundant objects - (2009-05-11)
[2172] PHP4 v PHP5 - Object Model Difference - (2009-05-11)
[2380] Object Oriented programming - a practical design example - (2009-08-27)
[2434] Abstract classes, Interfaces, PHP and Java - (2009-10-03)
[2435] Serialization - storing and reloading objects - (2009-10-04)
[2641] Object Oriented Programming in PHP - (2010-02-19)
[2680] Static class members in PHP - a documented example - (2010-03-16)
[2717] The Multiple Inheritance Conundrum, interfaces and mixins - (2010-04-11)
[2741] What is a factory? - (2010-04-26)
[2774] PHP - Object Oriented Design in use - (2010-05-21)
[2921] Does copying a variable duplicate the contents? - (2010-08-14)
[2922] Getting the OO design write - with PHP a example - (2010-08-14)
[3142] Private and Public - and things between - (2011-01-22)
[3210] Catchable fatal error in PHP ... How to catch, and alternative solutions such as JSON - (2011-03-22)
[3211] Computer Graphics in PHP - World (incoming data) to Pixel (screen) conversion - (2011-03-24)
[3607] Designing your application - using UML techniques - (2012-02-11)
[3608] Design Patterns - what are they? Why use them? - (2012-02-12)
[3609] How do classes relate to each other? Associated Classes - (2012-02-12)
[3840] Autoload in PHP - (2012-08-17)
[3841] Copying, duplicating, cloning an object in PHP - (2012-08-18)
[3843] Caching Design Patterns - (2012-08-20)
[3953] Objects in PHP - Revision - (2012-12-16)
[4057] stdClass in PHP - using an object rather than an associative array - (2013-04-02)
[4073] Learning about Object Orientation in PHP - a new set of examples - (2013-04-28)
[4356] Object factories in C++, Python, PHP and Perl - (2014-12-19)
[4366] Changing what operators do on objects - a comparison across different programming languages - (2014-12-26)
[4626] Singleton design pattern - examples and uses - (2016-01-20)
[4627] Caching results in an object for efficiency - avoiding re-calculation - (2016-01-20)
[4628] Associative objects - one object within another. - (2016-01-20)
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Linux - useful tips including history and file name completionA PHP example that lets your users edit content without HTML knowledgeLondon to and from Melksham by public transportWhy do I teach niche skills rather than mainstream?Shipping a test harness with your class in PHPHow to show a large result set page by page in PHPStatic variables and ampersands in PHPCurly braces within double quoted strings in PHPAn example of an injection attack using JavascriptSaturdays out from Melksham - to Oxford, to Didcot or to Swindon