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Object Oriented WP plugin structure

When searching the web for WordPress plugin tutorials and introductions the vast majority utilizes procedural programming. However having recently discovered Object Oriented programming in PHP 5 i decided to take another approach to both plugins and themes.

When encapsulating plugins or parts of your themes in classes, you create a container for variable, constant and function names thus avoiding name clashes with the core or with other plugins. You can also encapsulate your class in a statement checking if the class already exists to ensure that in the rare case of a name collision your plugin will not initialize and crash the WordPress installation.

Here is a simple example 

< ?php
// Plugin Name: Text Barking Dog



if (!class_exists('OurWpPluginDog')) {
    class OurWpPluginDog {
        function __construct() {
            $this->text = "wuff wuff";
        }
        function bark() {
            echo '';
        }
    }
    $dog = new OurWpPluginDog;
    add_action('wp_footer', array(&$dog, 'bark'));
}

This plugin will insert “wuff wuff” as an html comment at the hook wp_footer. The __construct function runs when the class is constructed you can also place your actions and filters here, if you do you simply reference array(&$this … instead.

Object oriented programming encourages DRY – it simply makes it more convenient to reuse your code. As your plugin grows you will also find it easier to get an overview of the code.

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 15:59 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “Object Oriented WP plugin structure”

  1. Bookmarks about Wp Says:
    September 12th, 2008 at 02:15

    [...] – bookmarked by 3 members originally found by freetoffee on 2008-08-25 Object Oriented WP plugin structure http://accidentdesigns.com/web/wordpress-web/oo-wp-plugin-structure/ – bookmarked by 3 members [...]

  2. Ikki at SEO Blog Says:
    January 15th, 2009 at 20:32

    Hi there,

    I was googling for instructions on creating object oriented plugins and came across this small entry which I found really helpful. My plugin is now OO structured!

    Thank you!

  3. Johan Bichel Lindegaard Says:
    January 21st, 2009 at 01:19

    Thanks IKKI! Im glad you found it helpful!