PHP 4 class autoloader - php

I'm working in PHP 4 with classes but there's not __autoload function, so I have problems to load my classes because they are intertwined.
I have a class Ship and a class Movement. The class Ship contains an Movement object and the class Movement contains an Ship object.
So when I do the require Ship, the class is read and throws error when reach the new Movement and conversely.
Some solution? ;)

PHP 4 is really, really old and not-supported. The best option is to move to PHP 5.
If you can't, create a bootstrap file, which requires all class definitions (in the correct order in case of inheritance); make sure the class definition files contains only class definition (and not executable code like $obj = new Movement) and require this file in each file you are actually running in your application.
The point is, the class definition of Movement is not needed before the new Movement statement, and if this statement is in some Ship's method (even if it's in the constructor), you can safely load the Ship.php, then Movement.php, then run the code and it will work.
Also, make sure to load all class definitions before starting the session, if you are using sessions and serialize objects in it.

Related

Overriding 2 functions in vendor package class

I'm currently trying to retrieve the SMTP Queue-ID when using the Laravel (5.6) Mail class.
I have copied the file vendor/swiftmailer/swiftmailer/lib/classes/Swift/Transport/AbstractSmtpTransport.php to /app/OverriddenAbstractSmtpTransport.php and made an alias in config/app.php, made my changes:
1:
on line#395 I added return in front of the line, so we obtain the output
2:
line#492 replaced with $message->queue_ids[] = $this->streamMessage($message);
So I can access queue_ids from the message property in the Illuminate\Mail\Events\MessageSent-event
Now this works, but I don't think it's a very safe approach to modifying the vendor class, as it might cause a breaking change when running security updates.
Is there a simpler/better/safer solution to this ?
Copying the whole class is risky - if any updates are done to the vendor class in a newer version, they'll never make it into your copy. A safer way is to extend the original class and overwrite those 2 functions. There is still a risk of some changes being done to those functions in vendor class, but it's much lower now. Another option would be to extend the original class and add new methods - they will have access to all public and protected properties/methods of the original class and that could be enough to get you what you need.
Whatever version you choose, you'll need to later register the new class as a new driver/transport for Swift. Check the following snippet for an example: https://gist.github.com/maxwellimpact/46ded5c553f68946d13d

Using spl_autoload_register without using include

I've seen a lot of threads here and in other forums that asked this a lot of times, but I still see using the include function of PHP in the answers?
how can I use this function, not using totally the include function?
Thank you
how can I use this function, not using totally the include function
You cannot totally not use include and that is not the point of using autoloader as you usually need to at least include the autoloader ;). That autoloader is the regular PHP code that is being called by PHP when unknown class use is attempted in the code. It is expected to include right file to make the class known, and the code continues as you'd explicitely include right file by hand in your code. So the main benefit shows up when your code uses classed (OOP) - you do not need to care if you included the class you are about to instantiate the object of or not. You just do new Foo() or call Something::methodName() and if all is set up right it will work.
The function spl_autoload_register is used to register a callback into the autoloader queue.
The PHP autoloader is a functionality of the PHP interpreter that, when a class is not defined, calls the functions registered in the queue, one by one, asking them to load the class, until the class becomes available. It the class is still not available after all the functions were invoked, the interpreter triggers a fatal error.
The autoloader doesn't perform any magic. It is the entire responsibility of the registered functions to make the class available. Most of them use the name and namespace of the missing class to figure out the path of the file that contains the declaration of the class and include it.
That's how the thing works. There are not many ways to produce a class in PHP and, for a reusable autoloader callback, the list starts and ends with include1 (include_once, require or require_once can be used as well but they don't make any difference in this case.)
The autoloader callback itself stays in separate file (for reusability) and usually that file also contains its registration as autoloader callback (the call to spl_autoload_register). All your code have to do is to include this file once in every file that is an entry point of your application.
All things being equal, your application needs to use include at least once and once is also the maximum required number of usages for it. The autoloader callback also uses include (probably also only once) but you don't write autoloader callbacks every day. If you wrote one and you wrote it well you can reuse it. Most people never wrote an autoloader callback and they will never write one.
Using Composer is easy and if you follow the PSR-4 rules of naming the files of your project, Composer can generate an autoloader for your project that knows how to load your classes (behind the scene it uses include, of course). All you have to do is to run composer init in the root directory of your project, run composer install and write include 'vendor/autoload.php'; in the file that represents the entry-point of your application. No other uses of include are required.
1 An autoloader callback is not required to include another file to make the class available. It can generate the code of the class on the fly and eval()-uate it, but the use cases of such approach are very limited. It is used by the testing suites f.e., to generate mock classes.

Composer Overriding/Extending Classes With Namespaces

I have one namespace (for example \App\) that contains all my app encapsulated, currently I'm using composer to autoload this namespace using PSR-0 and checking for two different folders, "Main" and "Client". (Giving priority to the client folder, allowing me to override the main app functionality to meet the client's requests by only creating the necessary override files in the client's folder)
Now, I'm thinking that it would be better if the client's override classes extended the original one, because I realized that the main use for this is to edit only some of the class methods, and I want to future proof the "override class" for new methods that could appear in the "main class". And I've been struggling with a way to make this happen, keeping the namespaces.
Example: Sales Controller Class ==> \App\Controller\Sale
If there isn't a "Client/App/Controller/Sale.php" file it uses the default "Main/App/Controller/Sale.php"
But if there is, what I want is that "Client/App/Controller/Sale.php" could be able to extend "Main/App/Controller/Sale.php"
<?php
namespace App\Controller
use \Main\Controller\Sale as OriginalClass //The Sale class in Main Folder
class Sale extend OriginalClass {...}
This way, I could override only some methods in the client's class and if the main class gets updated it would be reflected in the client's app.
The problem is, that since both, the client and main class are in the \App\ namespace, I can't figure out a way to get the "use" statement above to work. The main reason is that any prepended namespace (in the example "\Main + namespace) that I put in it won’t work, because the file's namespace would be different.
Another way I thought it could work is by tinkering with the composer autoload, and check if the namespace starts with "Main" or maybe "Original", then remove that part from the namespace and force to use the "Main" folder. But I couldn't find where this could be implemented.
Another solution I considered was to subdivide the main class functionality in sub classes, that could be overridden using the current autoload scheme, but I don't know if it is wise to have so many classes and files scattered through the system.
Any help or guidance is always welcome.
No Solution, but a workaround
I ended up separating the clients and main classes namespaces. Then, I made a function that recives a class name and checks if the class exists in the client's folder and prepend the "Client\" namespace, or append the "Main\" namespace before initializing.
So
$class = "Path\\To\\My\\Class";
$class = checkClass($class);
// Now class is either "Client\\Path\\To\\My\\Class; or Main\\Path\\To\\My\\Class;
//Uses:
$object = new $class();
$static = $class::StaticMethod();
Also, the "Client" version of the classes extends their "Main" --base-- class.
Eg: Client\MyClass extends Main\MyClass

PHP OOP - Require or Extend

I was wondering if there is any major different in the following, and whether one is more 'standard' than the other:
<?php
class Account extends Database {
public function myMethod()
{
// Do something
}
}
?>
or
<?php
require('database.class.php');
class Account {
public function myMethod()
{
// Do something
}
}
?>
Cheers :)
Edit:
This question actually relates to a tutorial series I have been following which describes the above two methods - which didn't make any clear sense.
So thank you for the constructive answers on clearing that one up!
Those are two completely separate language constructs.
Your first example deals with inheritance. Basically, you already have a class called Database, but you want to have a specialized version of that class to handle accounts. Rather than build a brand new Account class and copy/paste all the functionality you already have in your Database class, you simply tell PHP that you want to use the existing Database class as a baseline. You create any account-specific functionality in the new Account class, and anything database-related comes automatically. This is assuming, of course, that you have some way of specifying where the Database class is defined - for example, a require declaration at the top of the class, or an __autoload() or spl_autoload_register() function call defining a way to find and locate the file containing the Database class.
In your second example, your database-related code is completely separated from your Account class. They're completely distinct entities, and if you wanted to do anything database-related in your Account class, you would have to explicitly instantiate a new Database object within that class (or pass it to that class, or one of its functions, as a parameter.
Basically, extends helps define what a class is, whereas require shows where a class definition (or other code) is stored.
Both code snippets aren't even equivalent.
The first declares Account to extend Database, a is-a relation.
In the second code snippet, you are simply saying that you require 'database.class.php' ... and that neither has anything to do with OO, nor defines a is-relation from Account to Database.
Both are completely different in first one class is inherited by another class but in the second one the class is included in your script only.
Means if you extend all the public and protected methods are available in your derived class and you can create object of derived class and can use methods with derived class's object.
But in the second method the class is included in your script and require this class it's own method and work independently.
The first means you create a new class, which has all the functionality of Database class and those you implement.
The second means that you create a new class, but it doesn't have Database functionality since it's not extending it. If you need database access in your Account class, you can create an instance in constructor, or pass already created instance as constructor parameter.
It's hard to say what is more standard, since it depends on what You actually want to achieve.
To put it in most simple terms:-
require or include is structural programming.
extends is object oriented

php extending classes

I'm using a salesforce class called SforceEnterpriseClient. I've referenced that class many places in my application. I want to extend that class to give it the ability to return a single array from a 1 row recordset, right now the record set is about 3 levels deep. There's a few other things I want to do with it as well. I can handle all that.
Everything I've read about classes says that when I extend a class, I need to call the new one as such:
class MySF extends SforceEnterpriseClient {};
$mySforceConnection = new $MySF;
That means in all of my existing code I have to find/replace.
Is it possible to overwrite the parent with the child so I don't have to play the find/replace game?
class SforceEnterpriseClient extends SforceEnterpriseClient {};
$mySforceConnection = new $SforceEnterpriseClient ;
You can probably play some classloading tricks with the magic __autoload() function and removing references to the salesforce file ie. require, require_once, include, include_once; But in the interest of readability and maintainability, you should probably take the long route here and modify all your references to use the subclass.
How about this, in the source file for the class, rename the class (and most likely the constructor as well) then extend the class using something like
class SforceEnterpriseClient extends renamedClass {};
Then rename the file and create a new file with the old name and include the renamed file. Put the code for your extended version in the new file. The final result is that every file that was using the original will see the new version without having to track them all down.
About the only major issue would be what happens when a new version of the class becomes available.
Unfortunately, that would be the only way to do so. You cannot reverse inhertiance. Sorry and good luck!
Kyle
Maybe you do not need to extend the class in this scenario. You extend a class when you want to add new functionality or change existing functionality AND keep the original class intact. Usually this is the way to go. But, if you need to make a change to an existing class and then update all references to the class to refer to the new class why not simply change the class code itself? That way the references would not have to change.
Also have a look at the factory pattern. Normally you should keep class creation and business logic separate.
So when you come across a problem like this, you only have to go and change the factory...
$sfEnterpriseClient = Factory::getSFEnterpriseClient($params);
that way you can avoid 'new' constructs in your business logic, and makes your code more manageable

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