Will PHP Autoloader load when calling a class constant?

Question

I have a class that defines some class constants. It looks something like this phony class for simplicity.

class MyThing {
  const BORIS = 'Yeltsin';
}

I'm registering the directory that the class is located like so.

AutoLoader::registerDirectory('lib');

I'm using PHP's autoloader and it works as expected, except when I'm trying to call this class const.

If I do this.

MyThing::BORIS

I get this.

Undefined class constant 'BORIS'

I think this is how the autoloader is supposed to work, but I wanted to know if I'm correct.

I'm using this AutoLoader class, which was chosen before I started working at this company, but it seems to work.

<?php

/**
 * Autoloading class.
 * From http://jes.st/2011/phpunit-bootstrap-and-autoloading-classes/
 * as per the author comment:
 * Jess Telford says:
 *   December 21, 2013 at 4:01 am
 *   Public Domain – do with it whatever you want :)
 *
 * This class will compare classnames to the filename without extensions (.class.php or .php) registered
 *
 * This means that only a class per file can be loaded and only if the class name is identical (case sensitive) to the file name
 *
 */

class AutoLoader {

    static private $classNames = array();

    /**
     * Recursively store all .class.php and .php files found under $dirName in the autoloader
     *
     * @param String $dirName has to be a valid path
     */
    public static function registerDirectory($dirName) {

        $di = new DirectoryIterator($dirName);
        foreach ($di as $file) {

            if ($file->isDir() && !$file->isLink() && !$file->isDot()) {
                self::registerDirectory($file->getPathname());
            } elseif (substr(strtolower ($file->getFilename()), -10) === '.class.php') {
                $className = substr($file->getFilename(), 0, -10);
                AutoLoader::registerClass($className, $file->getPathname());
            }elseif (substr(strtolower ($file->getFilename()), -4) === '.php') {
                $className = substr($file->getFilename(), 0, -4);
                AutoLoader::registerClass($className, $file->getPathname());
            }
        }
    }

    public static function registerClass($className, $fileName) {
        AutoLoader::$classNames[$className] = $fileName;
    }

    public static function loadClass($className) {
        if (isset(AutoLoader::$classNames[$className])) {
            require_once(AutoLoader::$classNames[$className]);
        }
     }

}

spl_autoload_register(array('AutoLoader', 'loadClass'));
?>

Update: My original question said that calling spl_autoload('MyThing') solved my problem, it didn't.

That autoloader does require you to register a directory to populate AutoLoader::$classNames before it is capable of autoloading a class — Mark Baker, Feb 13 '15 at 15:15
That's correct @MarkBaker, I'm doing that, and it's loading the other classes in the directory with the class that has my class constants in it. — Halfstop, Feb 13 '15 at 15:19
Should work fine. Mybe some spelling mistake in the class filename? Check if you can calla nything else of this Class beside a constant. — Torge, Feb 13 '15 at 15:28

Ron van der Heijden · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-16T13:08:32.117

In short, yes, autoloader is called for statics.

You could test this yourself:

/index.php

<?php

    class Init {
        function __construct() {
            spl_autoload_register(array($this, 'loadClass'));
            echo MyThing::BORIS;
        }
        function loadClass($className) {
            $possible_file = 'classes/' . strtolower($className) . '.php';
            echo 'Autoloader called for ' . $className . '<br />';
            if(file_exists($possible_file)) {
                require_once($possible_file);
                return true;
            }
            return false;
        }
    }

    new Init();

/classes/mything.php

<?php

    class MyThing {
        const BORIS = 'Yeltsin';
    }

Output

Autoloader called for MyThing
Yeltsin

Thank you. I figured it out. I'm working with existing code written by someone else and printing out what the autoloader is loading, shows that there are two classes with the same name in different locations. One has the constants I want and the other does not. Back polishing this turd. — Halfstop, Feb 13 '15 at 15:40

Will PHP Autoloader load when calling a class constant?

1 Answers1

/index.php

/classes/mything.php

Output