calling a php class function syntax - php

Question

I am currently looking a this piece of code from a module called ZfcUser for Zend 2:
namespace ZfcUser\Controller;
use Zend\Form\Form;
use Zend\Mvc\Controller\AbstractActionController;
use Zend\Stdlib\ResponseInterface as Response;
use Zend\Stdlib\Parameters;
use Zend\View\Model\ViewModel;
use ZfcUser\Service\User as UserService;
use ZfcUser\Options\UserControllerOptionsInterface;
class UserController extends AbstractActionController
{
/**
* #var UserService
*/
protected $userService;
.
.
public function indexAction()
{
if (!$this->zfcUserAuthentication()->hasIdentity()) {
return $this->redirect()->toRoute('zfcuser/login');
}
return new ViewModel();
}
.
.
}
In the namespace ZfcUser\Controller\Plugin:
namespace ZfcUser\Controller\Plugin;
use Zend\Mvc\Controller\Plugin\AbstractPlugin;
use Zend\Authentication\AuthenticationService;
use Zend\ServiceManager\ServiceManagerAwareInterface;
use Zend\ServiceManager\ServiceManager;
use ZfcUser\Authentication\Adapter\AdapterChain as AuthAdapter;
class ZfcUserAuthentication extends AbstractPlugin implements ServiceManagerAwareInterface
{
/**
* #var AuthAdapter
*/
protected $authAdapter;
.
.
/**
* Proxy convenience method
*
* #return mixed
*/
public function hasIdentity()
{
return $this->getAuthService()->hasIdentity();
}
/**
* Get authService.
*
* #return AuthenticationService
*/
public function getAuthService()
{
if (null === $this->authService) {
$this->authService = $this->getServiceManager()->get('zfcuser_auth_service');
}
return $this->authService;
}
My Questions:
From indexAction(), the controller plugin is called without being instantiated ($this->zfcUserAuthentication()->hasIdentity()), do controller plugins always work like this?.
What really happens in the hasIdentity()? I see getAuthService() returning something but not hasIdentity().I am not familiar with this type of advanced class implementation of function calling so I would truly appreciate any explanation here or topic I should look into.

Answer 1

I can't answer your first question, but regarding your second question:
The getAuthService() method in your code returns an AuthenticationService object, which has a hasIdentity() method.
So there are two different hasIdentity() methods:
In the AuthenticationService class (source code here).
In the ZfcUserAuthentication class which you're looking at.
This line of code in the ZfcUserAuthentication class:
return $this->getAuthService()->hasIdentity();
does three things:
$this->getAuthService() returns an AuthenticationService object.
The hasIdentity() method of that AuthenticationService object is then called, and it returns a boolean.
That boolean is then returned.
Imagine splitting the code into two parts:
// Get AuthenticationService object Call a method of that object
$this->getAuthService() ->hasIdentity();
Hope that helps!

Answer 2

All sorts of plugins in Zend Framework are managed by plugin managers, which are subclasses of AbstractPluginManager which is subclasss of ServiceManager.
$this->zfcUserAuthentication() proxies by AbstractController to pluginmanager internally.
AuthenticationService::hasIdentity() checks if something was added to storage during successful authentication attempt in this or previous request:
See here