We are probably lucky that PHP doesn't allow this, but I'm curious
about what the argument is against allowing this? Why did the inventors
of PHP keep this from working? This same thing, using eval to create a
class defintion, works in Javascript, demonstrating, perhaps, that
Javascript is very flexible and you can do awful things with it.
Anyway, the following code prints out "class does not exist".
<?php
// 05-26-05 - just a personal demo to satify my personal curiosity to
see if eval() will
// create a class definition
$string = "class SendFormattedText { ";
$string = "function boldText() { ";
$string = " echo \"<b>The world is a good place</b>\" ";
$string = " } } ";
eval($string);
if (class_exists("SendFormattedText")) {
$obj = new SendFormattedText();
$obj->boldText();
} else {
echo "<p>class does not exist ";
}
?>