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Now that you understand how Getters and Setters work, let’s take a closer look at how we can use them when working with an associative array. This can give us detailed of control over what data we accept and what we do with that data.
Type Juggling/Casting Variables
Associative Arrays used in the Build a Basic PHP Website course
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We created our first getter and
setter methods on the title property
0:00
because we want to control
the incoming format.
0:04
The next property in the class
is an array of ingredients.
0:07
We could set this up as a simple
array of strings, these strings
0:11
would be the full ingredients just
as you would see them in a recipe.
0:15
Two cups flour, one egg, a cup and
a half of milk, and so on.
0:19
This would work fine, if we just want
to print out a list of ingredients.
0:24
It does make it harder to
control the format this way.
0:29
Are we going to accept numbers
such as fractions, one-half,
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or decimals, like 0.5?
0:36
It also makes it more difficult when
it comes to combining ingredients
0:40
to make a shopping list, which is
something we'll be doing a little later.
0:44
Instead of using a single string for
0:48
each ingredient, we're going to set up
our ingredients as an associative array.
0:50
This will allow us to break our
ingredients up into parts, and
0:55
better control the formatting and
merging of items.
1:00
Let's look at an example of
how the data will be stored.
1:03
Each ingredient will be an array
with three keyed elements.
1:07
Items such as flour.
1:11
Amount, such as 2.5.
1:13
And measurement, such as cup.
1:15
We'll add more ingredients and
1:18
each of these individual ingredients will
then be stored in a basic numbered array.
1:20
Let's start adding the ingredients.
1:25
Instead of just setting
the property all at once,
1:28
we're going to add individual ingredients.
1:30
So we'll use public
function addIngredient.
1:33
This method will accept three arguments,
1:40
item, amount and measure.
1:45
Only the first item will be required.
1:48
So we can add a default value of null
to both the amount and the measure.
1:51
This will allow us to accept things like,
egg, one, without a measurement,
2:03
or maybe lime to taste,
without an amount or a measurement.
2:09
After accepting these three arguments,
2:13
we want to add them to our
ingredients as an associative array.
2:15
This ingredient, we'll add an element and
2:19
our element will be an array.
2:24
We'll have a key of item.
2:30
And we'll set this to item.
2:31
Our next key will be amount and
we'll set this to amount.
2:37
And finally measure.
2:44
We can also format these values
like using, UC words, on our item.
2:52
We can also require that they pass
a float or an integer as the amount.
3:02
Before setting this ingredient,
3:06
we'll check if amount
is not equal null &&
3:12
not is_float amount and
3:20
not is_int amount.
3:24
If we haven't passed a float or
an integer,
3:30
then we want to exit our
script with a message.
3:32
We can also add more information
about what they did pass.
3:43
gettype,
tells us which type the amount is.
3:49
We can also require that they
pass a valid measurement.
4:02
To do this we have to first define which
measurements we're going to accept.
4:06
To do this, we're going to
add another private property.
4:11
Private because we don't want anything
to be able to change our measurements.
4:20
We'll call these measurements and
we'll set it to an array.
4:25
We want tsp, tbsp,
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cup, oz, pound,
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fluid ounce, pint,
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quart and gallon.
4:48
You can change these however you want or
add other values.
4:57
Now that we have defined the acceptable
measurements we can make sure that
5:02
the measurement that
we passed in is valid.
5:05
If measure is not equal
5:13
to null and in_array,
5:19
check measure in this
5:24
measurements.
5:29
Again, we want to exit our
script with a message.
5:33
We can tell them which measurements
are valid by using implode.
5:45
I also want to make sure that it's
checking the lowercase version of measure.
5:59
str for string tolower.
6:04
I also want to set the lowercase
version of measure.
6:11
Let's see if we can get some errors.
6:18
Let's addIngredient.
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Press egg and the word one and then dozen.
6:31
Now let's run this script in the console.
6:38
The amount must be
a float: string one given.
6:47
Okay, great.
6:52
Let's change this string to an int.
6:53
Now let's try running it again.
6:57
Undefined property.
6:58
Let's look up here.
7:05
This should be an s for measurements.
7:06
Now let's run it again.
7:12
Great, now we see please enter a valid
measurement with our list of measurements.
7:15
We can now take off the measurement and
try it again.
7:20
Great, no errors.
7:29
But we don't have any way to
retrieve the ingredients yet.
7:30
We need to add a new method.
7:34
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