Namespaces overview
Namespaces in PHP are designed to solve scoping problem in large PHP
libraries. In PHP, all class definitions are global. Thus, when a library
author creates various utility or public API classes for the library, he must
be aware of the possibility that other libraries with similar functionality
would exist and thus choose unique names so that these libraries could be
used together. Usually it is solved by prefixing the class names with an
unique string - e.g., database classes would have prefix
My_Library_DB, etc. As the library grows, prefixes add up,
leading to the very long names.
The namespaces allow the developer to manage naming scopes without using the
long names each time the class is referred to, and solve the problem of
shared globals space without making code unreadable.
Namespaces are available in PHP as of PHP 5.3.0. This section is experimental
and subject to changes.
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