Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours, Third Edition

Bringing It Together

Let’s build an example that uses some of the functions we have examined in this hour. Suppose that we have been asked to produce a dynamic bar chart that compares a range of labeled numbers. The bar chart must include the relevant label below each bar. Our client must be able to change the number of bars on the chart, the height and width of the image, and the size of the border around the chart. The bar chart will be used for consumer votes, and all that is needed is an at-a-glance representation of the data. A more detailed breakdown will be included in the HTML portion of the containing page.

To make our code reasonably reusable, we create a class called SimpleBar.

Before we even reach the constructor, we can set up some ...