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So often a plugin need to track information in variables, I'm talking about data that is persistent through out the life of the plugin. This allow data to be passed from event to event, for example.

A plugin is persistent as the MANAGER class instantiates each of the plugins at the beginning of the transaction and holds them until the script completed execution.

From looking into many plugins, here's I tried to summarize some tricks for storing data through out execution.

Method 1: $this object

We can dynamically create variables as the plugin is being executed, this take advantage of the fact that MANAGER class holds on to the plugin object until the execution is done:

$this->new_var = 6542;

Method 2: global variable

This is the good old always working way of making data persistent. But depends on who you talk to, they will tell you global is bad bad bad boy that you shall not use. But hey, if you know what you're doing, why not?


(Note: Personally, I try to avoid global whenever possible... [update]see karma's comment below why we should not use global[/update])

global $my_global;

$my_global = 20;

Another question is what is the strategy for initializing persistent data in a plugin?

I assumed you can do it at the beginning of doSkinVar() or whenever needed. However, I saw code uses either init() or the class constructor function. Either way should be fine and are recommanded so all persistent data are initialized at the same place, for neatness's sicks.