How to call a local property using OOP? - php

Question

I'm a beginner looking to learn more about PHP OOP, so there are things I don't know, in the ShowUsers() method, I would like to display all users in the database, but I'm not getting it, because I don't know how to call the connection property. If I've been using encapsulation, it would be easy, but I'm using the connection property as local, and I really don't know how to call this property, how can I call it without using encapsulation?
db.php
<?php
class DbConnect {
private $host = 'localhost';
private $dbname = 'database';
private $username = 'root';
private $password = '';
public function __construct() {
try {
$conn = new PDO("mysql:host=$this->host;dbname=$this->dbname", $this->username, $this->password);
$conn->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
}
catch(PDOException $exception) {
throw new Exception($exception->getMessage());
}
}
}
main.php
<?php
require_once 'db.php';
class Main extends DbConnect {
public function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
}
public function ShowUsers() {
$sql = "SELECT * FROM users";
$result = parent::__construct()->prepare($sql); //Problem here
$result->execute();
}
}
$object = new Main();
$object->ShowUsers();
Note: I don't want to use encapsulation to make it work, I want to learn how to call the variable without using encapsulation, if possible.

Answer 1

Based on the code above and the comments, I recommend that you declare $conn as protected in your DbConnect class:
<?php
// db.php
class DbConnect {
private $host = 'localhost';
private $dbname = 'database';
private $username = 'root';
private $password = '';
protected $conn;
public function __construct() {
try {
$this->conn = new PDO("mysql:host=$this->host;dbname=$this->dbname", $this->username, $this->password);
$this->conn->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
}
catch(PDOException $exception) {
throw new Exception($exception->getMessage());
}
}
}
Then in main.php, you can do:
<?php
// main.php
require_once 'db.php';
class Main extends DbConnect {
public function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
}
public function ShowUsers() {
$sql = "SELECT * FROM users";
$result = $this->conn->prepare($sql);
$result->execute();
}
}
$object = new Main();
$object->ShowUsers();
?>