$mo = new MyObject();
  $mo->set_from($_POST);
  if(!$mo->validate())
  {
      var_dump($mo->errors);
  }

An array containing a list of all the private attributes' names.

The attributes named in this array won't be exposed to the template engine. It might for example be wise to not expose a user's real password to the templates.

Example:

   $_private = array("id", "user_information_id");

This specifies that id and user_information_id are private attributes.

• access: private

Returns an array representation of the class's attributes.

Returns the class's attributes in an associative array, with the attribute's name as key and the value as the value. This if useful for example when exposing the object to the template engine.

The attribute listed in the _private array are not included.

Note: In versions prior to PHP 4.2.0, if the variables declared in the class of which the obj is an instance, have not been assigned a value, those will not be returned in the array. In versions after PHP 4.2.0, the key will be assigned with a NULL value.

Example:

   $p = new Person();
   $p->name = "name";
   $p->phone_no = "034-34343";
   $hash = $p->getArrayRepresentation();

This results in $hash being an array containing the key-value pairs of the attributes that have a value. It will containg the following "name" => "name" and "phone_no" => "034-34343".

• return: the resulting array
• access: public

   $p = new Person();
   $a = array("name" => "Ismo", "phone_no" => "456");
   $p->setFrom($a);

   $p1 = new Person();
   $p1->id = 1;
   $p1->name = "name1";
   $p1->phone_no = "name2";
 
   $p2 = new Person();
   $p2->id = 2;
   $p2->setFrom($p1);

Validates this object.

The validation is done by calling a method named validate[class attribute name] for each class attribute. If the method doesn't exist no validation will be done for that attribute.

Any amount of parameters can be given to this method. All paramters given will be given to each of the validate methods when they are called. If the amount of parameters do not match you will get a PHP error.

Please note that the attribute's mentioned in the _private attribute, i.e. the private attributes, won't be validated.

By using require_once() to include PEAR's Validate class in a validate methode one can use those functions to validate the data.

Example:

  $p = new Person();
  $p->name = "Name";
  $p->phoneNo = "0123456";
  $p->country = "qwerty";
  if ($p->validate() != true)
  {
      foreach ($p->errors as $k => $v)
      {
          echo "Attribute " . $k . " isn't valid due to " . $v . "<br/>";
      }
  }

This will validate the attribute values of the Person class instance by calling the validateName(), validatePhoneNo() and validateCountry() methods if they exist.

Another example showing how the multiple parameters work:

  class Foo extends Ismo_Core_Object
  {
      var $name;
      var $address;
 
      function Foo($src = null)
      {
          parent::Ismo_Core_Object($src);
      }
 
      function validateName($country, $language)
      {
          if ($country == 'sweden' &&
              $language == 'swedish')
          {
              // do swedish check ...
          }
          else if ($country == 'finland' &&
                   $language == 'finnish')
          {
              // do finnish check ...
          }
          else
          {
              // do other check
          }
      }
 
      // and similar other validate methods
  
  }
 
 
  // now when validating Foo objects one has to give a
// country and language. Of course those attributes could
  // have been assigned default values, i.e.
  // function validate_name($country = null, $language = null)
 
  
 
  $a = new Foo();
  if ($a->validate('sweden', 'swedish') != true)
  {
      foreach ($a->errors as $k => $v)
      {
          echo "Attribute " . $k . " isn't valid due to " . $v . "<br/>";
      }
  }

• return: true if the everything validated ok. false if it did not and $this->errors will be set with an associative array see $this->errors documentation for more details
• access: public

• mixed 0: any amount (including none) of parameters can be given. They will all be given to each of the validate methods when they are called.