Best way to create associative array of unique objects in PHP? - php

Question

I'm trying to create a list of unique objects in PHP.
I want to access each object by a unique name but I also need the object to know its name.
My idea was to create an associative array of objects like this:
class MyObject()
{
public $name;
public $property1;
public $property2;
function __construct($name)
{
$this->name = $name;
}
function doSomething()
{
echo $name.$property1;
}
function doSomethingElse()
{
echo $name.$property2;
}
}
$array = array();
$name = 'example';
$array[$name] = new MyObject($name);
$array[$name]->property1 = 'xyz';
$array[$name]->property2 = 123;
$name = 'test';
$array[$name] = new MyObject($uniqueName);
$array[$name]->property1 = 'abc';
$array[$name]->property2 = 321;
$array['example']->doSomething();
$array['test']->doSomethingElse();
I'm pretty new to PHP and coding in general and I feel like this is a really stupid solution so I wanted to ask if you know any better ways of doing this.

Answer 1

For a simple use-case you've provided, perhaps implementing the predefined interface ArrayAccess may fit the bill. Something like:
class UniqueCollection implements ArrayAccess
{
/**
* #var array<string, MyObject>
*/
private $collection = [];
/**
* #param mixed $offset
*
* #return bool
*/
public function offsetExists($offset): bool
{
return isset($this->collection[$offset]);
}
/**
* #param mixed $offset
*
* #return MyObject|null
*/
public function offsetGet($offset): mixed
{
return $this->collection[$offset] ?? null;
}
/**
* #param mixed $offset
* #param array<mixed, mixed> $values
*
* #return void
*/
public function offsetSet($offset, $values): void
{
if ($offset === null) {
// Error
}
// Uncomment if we don't want to overwrite existing MyObject with the same name,
// eg, throw exception
// if (isset($this->collection[$offset]) {
// // Error
// }
$count($values);
if ($count !== 0 || $count !== 2) {
// Error
}
$myObj = new MyObject($offset);
if ($count) {
// Fetch the values only so we only have to deal with zero-based integer offsets
$values = array_values($values);
// Establish a convention on which index goes to what property
$myObj->property1 = $values[0];
$myObj->property2 = $values[1];
}
$this->collection[$offset] = $myObj;
}
/**
* #param mixed $offset
*
* #return void
*/
public function offsetUnset($offset): void
{
return unset($this->collection[$offset]);
}
}
Use:
$set = new UniqueCollection();
$set['example'] = ['xyz', 123];
$set['test'] = []; // not exactly elegent, but hey ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
$set['test']->property1 = 'abc'; // should work fine, unless we clone the MyObject internally
$set['test']->property2 = 321; // ditto
$set['example']->doSomething();
$set['test']->doSomethingElse();
I haven't tested this so let me know if there are any issues.