辅助函数应该属于一个类吗？

Question

In my efforts to rewrite a past project of mine with OOP in mind, I have broken my code up into classes such as Devices, Facilities, etc.

Before moving to a more object oriented approach, I just stuck all of my helper functions in an included "functions.php" file. Using Devices as an example, would it be best to have a Devices class for my object specific properties/methods, then have a DeviceManager class to store functions like getDeviceByName, getDeviceByID, etc?

From what I am understanding, OOP is more about readability/manageability than anything else, why I assume the purpose would just be to have something like DeviceManager::GetDevice("Computer1") in place of GetDeviceByName("Computer1")

Answer 1

In a OOP languages like C# or Java, you simply can't have functions outside a class, so there's no issue. That doesn't mean you're doing OOP, which is a mindset.

In PHP you can either put the relevant functions into a nampespace or within a class (inside a namespace). It's up to you, there's no right or wrong approach. Personally, I'd put them into a class because that's how I'm doing it in C# and it'll help a bit with productivity: I group related functionality in one place (class). It's easier to manage.

But strictly from a programming point of view, there's no difference, your code won't be cleaner/decoupled or more OOP because you've put functions into a class or namespace