When to alter a function vs when to just write a new one...?

Posted by Andrew Heath on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Andrew Heath
Published on 2010-05-07T06:14:35Z Indexed on 2010/05/07 6:18 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 284

Filed under:

php

|

function

|

best-practices

/is n00b

Through the gift of knowledge and expertise encoded here, I am doing my best to avoid n00b mistakes as I learn the basics of programming.

I use functions when I (think I) can in PHP, and keep them somewhat sorted in different includes.

The n00b problem I'm running into now is situations where perhaps 4/5th of an existing function is relevant to a new need. Maybe there are a slightly different set of inputs, or an additional calculation or two in the series, or output needs a different format/structure... but the core of the function is still applicable.

Is there a good rule of thumb regarding when one should bolt-on crap to an original function and when one should (literally) copy & paste most of it into a new function and tweak to fit the situation?

On the one hand I feel bad duping code, on the other I feel bad cluttering up an existing function with stuff not always needed...

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about php

Magento, NGINX, PHP-FPM, APC, MEMCACHED, 16gb Ram CentOS, Spiking PHP-FPM to 100% CPU

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have been trying to resolve my issue of spiking cpu caused by php-fpm processes. I've reduced the php-fpm config settings to: pm = ondemand pm.max_children = 12 pm.start_servers = 2 pm.min_spare_servers = 2 pm.max_spare_servers = 10 pm.max_requests = 500 php_admin_value[memory_limit] = 128M Problem… >>> More
PHP Pear Installation on CentOS

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
[root@ip ~]# yum install php-pear* Reducing CentOS-5 Testing to included packages only Finished Setting up Install Process Package 1:php-pear-1.8.1-2.el5.centos.noarch already installed and latest versio … >>> More
Apache configurations for php "AddType text/html php" or "AddType application/x-httpd-php php .php"

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am taking over an application server and discover that it contain the following settings: AddType text/html php Although it works, but my understanding is that it should set as following: AddType application/x-httpd-php php .php What are the key differences between the two settings?… >>> More
mod_rewrite settings causes server to throw HTTP 500 errors instead of 404

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hello. I have a server with VBulletin forum (working under Apache 2.2, CentOS). The default settings for it in .htaccess are as follows: RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^gsmforum\.ru RewriteRule (.*) http://www.gsmforum.ru/$1 [R=301,L] # If you are having problems or are using VirtualDocumentRoot… >>> More
Problems installing Memcache (PECL extension)

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have installed memcached fine, and now I will need to install PECL extension memcache. Im running RedHat x86_64 es5. The installation gives me this: downloading memcache-2.2.6.tgz ... Starting to download memcache-2.2.6.tgz (35,957 bytes) ..........done: 35,957 bytes 11 source files, building running:… >>> More

Related posts about function

MAMP + Python MySQLDB - trouble installing

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm currently running the latest version of MAMP on my Snow Leopard OSX, and I'm trying to install MySQLDB. Downloaded: MySQL-python-1.2.3c1 I went into the setup_posix.py and adjusted the location of the mysql_config to the one in MAMP: mysql_config.path = "/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysql_config" When… >>> More
Compiling a program with a legacy version of gcc

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
This is probably a very difficult problem to troubleshoot with the information I can practically provide, but I'm hoping someone might be able to at least point me in a possible direction. I'm trying to install HTK (http://htk.eng.cam.ac.uk/), which, according to this page needs to be installed using… >>> More
eventmachine on debian fails install via rubygems

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
this has been killing me for the last 5 hours. I don't seem to be able to get eventmachine running on my debian box. here this output: $ gem install thin Building native extensions. This could take a while... ERROR: Error installing thin: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension. … >>> More
Can overloading is possible with two version of function, constant member function and function with

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello, I just came across various overloading methods like type of parameter passed, varying number of parameters, return type etc. I just want to know that can I overload a function with following two version //function which can modify member String& MyClass::doSomething(); //constant member… >>> More
[PHP] function().function() VS function()function()

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi all, I was writing a foreach Loop in PHP5. Here is the script: foreach(range('A','Z') as $char) // line 1 { // line 2 echo strtoupper($char)strtolower($char); // line 3 } // line 4 And I got this error message Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING in testing.php on line 3 I spent almost… >>> More