Overriding an instance method without inheritance in PHP? - php

Ok, i know that probably this is not possible, but i'll give it a try. Maybe my knowledge is not so good. Please don't downvote, this is just for curiosity and this maybe due to a poor OO design.
Assume that class definition for A is:
class A
{
public function build()
{
$data = $this->fetchData();
...
}
public function fetchData()
{
// Database eavy query
return $this->repository->fetchDataForCharting();
}
}
And then, without using a good and decent OO design, you create class B which is going to use fetchDataForCharting from the repository, for doing some other different calculations:
class B
{
public $data;
public function getMonthlyLimit()
{
// Database eavy query
$data = $this->getData();
}
public function getData()
{
return isset($this->data) ? $this->data :
$this->repository->fetchDataForCharting();
}
}
Sometimes you need only A, sometimes you need only B, sometimes both. Is there any way of overriding fetchData at runtime? I mean someting like $.extend() in jQuery:
$b = new B();
$b->getMonthlyLimit(); // $b->data filled
$a = new A();
// Override fetchData
$a = extend($a, 'fetchData', function() use($b) { return $b->data; });
$a->build(); // Just 1 query

There is no proper way to modify/replace/add a class method.
The runkit extension has runkit_method_redefine() and runkit_method_add() but both are experimental and ugly (they take a code string, not a Closure object like your anonymous function is).

It is not really clear to me what you are trying to do, but in PHP you can have calss B extend class A by writing the class B declaration as so:
Class B extends Class A {
...
}
You can the override the fetchData function within Class B like
public function fetchData {
// do something different than in class A
}
Or
public function fetchData {
// execute the Class A functionality first
parent::fetchData();
// now do something in addition to what is in Class A functionality
}
Hope this helps.

The short answer is no.
The closest you can get to exactly what you are asking is something like:
class A
{
public function __construct()
{
$this->bar = function()
{
};
}
public function foo()
{
$bar = $this->bar;
$bar();
}
}
$a = new A();
$a->bar = function()
{
// override
};
$a->foo();
Requires PHP 5.4 for $this support. But keep in mind that people do that sort of thing in JavaScript because it doesn't have "real" object oriented programming. You shouldn't try to emulate JavaScript, Ruby, Python, etc, just for the sake of doing it.
To be clear: in PHP, inheritance or composition or dependency injection is probably the proper way to go about what you are trying to do. (The above hack is definitely not what you should be doing.)

Related

PHP: Calling a method on a class property that is an object

Can anyone let me know if this is good practice or if there is a better cleaner way to do it? It looks very clumsy to me, so I'm wondering if there's a reason I haven't seen it before.
Class A {
public $instance_of_b;
function __construct () {
$this->instance_of_b = new B;
}
function deeper_hello() {
$this->instance_of_b->say_hi();
}
}
Class B {
public function say_hi() {
echo "Hello, from B!";
}
}
$instance_of_a = new A;
$instance_of_a->deeper_hello();
It parses as PHP so it's not semanticly wrong, but is there a cleaner way of doing it?
I should say, this is CLEARLY not actually my code, it's just the method. What I'm actually doing is creating an SQL class that uses PDO. In that SQL class, I'm recording the PDO and the PDOStatment objects in the properties of the SQL class.
Rather than instantiating B inside of A, it would be better to pass B to A via the constructor. This is called dependency injection and by doing this A is no longer tightly coupled to B.
Class A {
public $instance_of_b;
function __construct ($b) {
$this->instance_of_b = $b;
}
function deeper_hello() {
$this->instance_of_b->say_hi();
}
}
Class B {
public function say_hi() {
echo "Hello, from B!";
}
}
$instance_of_b = new B;
$instance_of_a = new A($instance_of_b);
$instance_of_a->deeper_hello();

PHP Passing Data to a Specific Class? (Data Encapsulation)

I've learned that OOP is all about data encapsulation, but what about passing data between classes that have nothing to do with each other (would the below example be worthy of using extends)?
class Dog {
private $secretVar;
public function getSecretVar() {
$this->secretVar = 'psst... only for rainbow!';
return $this->secretVar;
}
}
class Rainbow {
public function __construct(Dog $Dog) {
print_r($Dog->getSecretVar());
}
}
$Dog = new Dog();
$Rainbow = new Rainbow($Dog);
// ... classes that don't need the $secretVar
How would you encapsulate $secretVar for only classes Dog and Rainbow? As of now, anyone can call getSecretVar(), and I'm having a hard time allowing that to happen as it seems to defeat the whole point of encapsulation.
Here's a solution, although, it's ugly.
class Dog {
private $secretVar = 'psst... only for rainbow!';
public function getSecretVar($caller == NULL) {
// Here's the trick...
if (get_class($caller) == 'Rainbow') {
return $this->secretVar;
} else {
return '';
}
}
}
class Rainbow {
public function __construct(Dog $Dog) {
print_r($Dog->getSecretVar($this));
}
}
$Dog = new Dog();
$Rainbow = new Rainbow($Dog);
// ... classes that don't need the $secretVar
It's ugly because it hard to maintain and not intuitive. If you really need to do this, there's most likely a flaw in your design.
It wouldn't make sense for a Dog to extend Rainbow or vice versa just to share a variable.
What you are asking of may be possible but I don't know. If it was C++ using the friend visibility, it is certainly possible.
In this case, you have to make it public or use a getter and setter.
Encapsulation is not ment to hide the value of the variable from the rest of the program but to have full control of how the rest of your program can access the variable.
By declaring the variable private you can check what values it can be set to and you can make changes to it before anybody reads it.
There is no real point in trying to let only some of the classes read the variable.
What you are trying to do could be achieved by using reflection to check which class and method calls the getSecretVar() method, but it's hardly ever useful.
In your case, you could use protected like this: (every class that extends hasSecret will have access to it.)
<?php
class HasSecret {
protected $secretVar = 'psst... only for rainbow!';
}
class Dog extends HasSecret {
public function getSecretVar() {
return $this->secretVar;
}
}
class Rainbow extends HasSecret {
public function __construct(Dog $Dog) {
print_r($Dog->getSecretVar());
}
}
$Dog = new Dog();
$Rainbow = new Rainbow($Dog);

OOP/PHP5: Calling Class A from Class B - or, Making the horse jump

Say you have two classes, A and B. Is it possible to instantiate both classes once and then let class B call methods in class A, and vice versa?
It can be done using double colon (::) ... ... but then the method becomes static - is that a disadvantage? (see example below)
Can it be done in other ways? With interfaces?
This code shows what I try to do:
class A {
function horse() {
echo "horse";
}
}
class B {
function jump() {
// $A = new A; ... don't want to add this in each method.
$A->horse(); // Fails - $A is out of scope ($A = new A;).
// A::horse(); // Old code style - works.
// $this->horse(); // Works if you extend A - not self-documenting.
// $this->A->horse(); // Fails - out of scope.
}
}
$A = new A;
$B = new B; // Better to use "$B = new B($A);" ?
$B->jump(); // fails - the horse is sleeping.
Edit
Well, I am building a MVC-framework and I want to re-use code from other classes.
Some real-world examples:
a database object that is being passed across classes.
a "url" class that creates/manipulates URLs - used by other classes.
... and a code example:
class url {
function anchor($url,$name) {
return "{$name}";
}
}
class someclass {
function text($str,$url) {
return "{$str}. " . $url->anchor($url,"Read more...");
}
}
I think what you are asking for is multiple inheritance where you could extend both A and B like this
<?php
class C extends A,B {
//...
}
This however is not possible in PHP for good reasons(it actually is creating more problems than it's trying to solve).
Now you might ask yourself if there is any alternative to multiple inheritance and the answer is: Yes, there is! Have a look at the strategy pattern(as Benjamin Ortuzar also has pointed out).
UPDATE:
I just read your question a second time and figured that you might be looking for the singleton pattern, which lets you instantiate an instance of an class only once like this:
class A
{
protected static $_instance;
protected function __construct() //prohibit creating instances from outside
{ }
public static function getInstance()
{
if( self::$_instance === NULL ) {
self::$_instance = new self();
}
return self::$_instance;
}
}
$instance = A::getInstance();
Now A::getInstance() always returns the same instance of A which you can use in B and you can have both the advantages of dynamic functions and the accessibility of static functions.
UPDATE2:
Your database belongs into a registry if you can have more than one db-connection. If you're absolutely certain that you will always need only one db-connection you could as well make it a singleton.
For the URL helper I'd suggest writing a static class if you can and if you really need it to be dynamic make it a singleton, as mentioned before.
I think that this should work:
$B = new B();
$B->jump();
But you should read/refer to http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.php
Of course you should import the class if you're accessing it from a different php file. And if you're in the object you're calling the method of you should use
$this->jump();
I would suggest reading about the factory and strategy pattern. You can read more about this from chapter one of this fantastic book. link text
I would recomend you reading the whole book.
Maybe (just guessing) you're looking for something like aggregation in COM:
Aggregation is the object reuse mechanism in which the outer object exposes interfaces from the inner object as if they were implemented on the outer object itself.
You can build something like that with the "magic method" __call. Each time a method is called that isn't callable in the object's context this method is invoked and your code can decide what to do with this call. E.g. it can test if another object that is stored as a property of the "outer" object exposes a method with that name and than call that inner object's method.
class Foo {
protected $inner = null;
public function __construct($inner=null) {
if ( is_null($inner) && !is_object($inner) ) {
throw new Exception('...');
}
$this->inner = $inner;
}
public function __call($name, $arguments) {
// also check http://uk.php.net/is_callable
if ( !is_null($this->inner) && method_exists($this->inner, $name) ) {
return call_user_func_array( array($this->inner, $name), $arguments);
}
else {
// add some error handler here
throw new Exception('...');
}
}
function jump() {
$this->horse();
echo " jumps";
}
}
class Bar {
function horse() {
echo "horse";
}
}
$foo = new Foo(new Bar);
$foo->jump();
This works. But I'd recommend something like that only for quite specific circumstances. The most obvious reason beeing that it's hard to tell from the outside what this object $foo really can and cannot do.

How to chain method on a newly created object?

I would like to know whether there's a way to chain methods on a newly created object in PHP?
Something like:
class Foo {
public function xyz() { ... return $this; }
}
$my_foo = new Foo()->xyz();
Anyone know of a way to achieve this?
In PHP 5.4+, the parser's been modified so you can do something like this
(new Foo())->xyz();
Wrap the instantiation in parenthesis, and chain away.
Prior to PHP 5.4, when you're using the
new Classname();
syntax, you can't chain a method call off the instantiation. It's a limitation of PHP 5.3's syntax. Once an object is instantiated, you can chain away.
One method I've seen used to get around this is a static instantiation method of some kind.
class Foo
{
public function xyz()
{
echo "Called","\n";
return $this;
}
static public function instantiate()
{
return new self();
}
}
$a = Foo::instantiate()->xyz();
By wrapping the call to new in a static method, you can instantiate a class with method call, and you're then free to chain off that.
Define a global function like this:
function with($object){ return $object; }
You will then be able to call:
with(new Foo)->xyz();
In PHP 5.4 you can chain off a newly instantiated object:
http://docs.php.net/manual/en/migration54.new-features.php
For older versions of PHP, you can use Alan Storm's solution.
This answer is outdated - therefore want to correct it.
In PHP 5.4.x you can chain a method to a new-call. Let's take this class as example:
<?php class a {
public function __construct() { echo "Constructed\n"; }
public function foo() { echo "Foobar'd!\n"; }
}
Now, we can use this: $b = (new a())->foo();
And the output is:
Constructed
Foobar'd!
Further information may be found on the manual: http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration54.new-features.php
Well, this may be an old question but as with a lot of things in programming - eventually the answer changes.
Regarding PHP 5.3, no, you can't chain directly from the constructor. To expand on the accepted answer however, in order to properly accommodate for inheritance, you can do:
abstract class Foo
{
public static function create()
{
return new static;
}
}
class Bar extends Foo
{
public function chain1()
{
return $this;
}
public function chain2()
{
return $this;
}
}
$bar = Bar::create()->chain1()->chain2();
That will work just fine and will return you a new Bar() instance.
In PHP 5.4, however, you can simply do:
$bar = (new Bar)->chain1()->chain2();
Hopefully this helps someone stumbling across the question like I have!
It would be really helpful if they 'fix this' in a future release. I really appreciate the ability to chain (especially when populating collections):
I added a method to the base class of my framework called create() that can be chained off of. Should work with all descendant classes automatically.
class baseClass
{
...
public final static function create()
{
$class = new \ReflectionClass(get_called_class());
return $class->newInstance(func_get_args());
}
...
public function __call($method, $args)
{
$matches = array();
if (preg_match('/^(?:Add|Set)(?<prop>.+)/', $method, $matches) > 0)
{
// Magic chaining method
if (property_exists($this, $matches['prop']) && count($args) > 0)
{
$this->$matches['prop'] = $args[0];
return $this;
}
}
}
...
}
Class::create()->SetName('Kris')->SetAge(36);
Just for the sake of completeness (and for the fun of it...), since nobody seems to have mentioned the solution with the shortest (and least sophisticated) code.
For frequently used short-lived objects, especially when writing test cases, where you typically do lots of object creation, you may want to optimize for typing convenience (rather than purity), and sorta' combine Alan Storm's Foo::instantiate() factory method and Kenaniah's with() global function technique.
Simply make the factory method a global function with the same name as the class!. ;-o (Either add it as a convenience wrapper around the proper static Foo::instantiate() or just move it out there while nobody is looking.)
class Foo
{
public function xyz()
{
echo "Called","\n";
return $this;
}
}
function Foo()
{
return new Foo();
}
$a = Foo()->xyz();
NOTE:
I WOULDN'T DO THIS on production code. While kinda' sexy, this is an abuse on basic coding principles (like "principle of least surprise" (although this is actually rather intuitive syntax), or "don't repeat yourself", esp. if wrapping a real factory method with some parameters, which itself, BTW, is already an abuse of DRY...), plus PHP may change in he future to break code like this in funny ways.

Is what seems like polymorphism in PHP really polymorphism?

Trying to figure out whether PHP supports features like method overloading, inheritance, and polymorphism, I found out:
it does not support method overloading
it does support inheritance
but I am unsure about polymorphism. I found this Googling the Internet:
I should note that in PHP the
polymorphism isn't quite the way it
should be. I mean that it does work,
but since we have a weak datatype, its
not correct.
So is it really polymorphism?
Edit
Just can't quite place a definite YES or NO next to PHP supports polymorphism. I would be loath to state: "PHP does not support polymorphism", when in reality it does. Or vice-versa.
class Animal {
var $name;
function __construct($name) {
$this->name = $name;
}
}
class Dog extends Animal {
function speak() {
return "Woof, woof!";
}
}
class Cat extends Animal {
function speak() {
return "Meow...";
}
}
$animals = array(new Dog('Skip'), new Cat('Snowball'));
foreach($animals as $animal) {
print $animal->name . " says: " . $animal->speak() . '<br>';
}
You can label it all you want, but that looks like polymorphism to me.
although PHP does not support method overloading the way you have experienced in other languages, say Java. but you CAN have method overloading in PHP, but the definition method is different.
if you want to have different functionality for a given method, with different set of parameters in PHP, you can do something like this:
class myClass {
public function overloadedMethod() {
// func_num_args() is a build-in function that returns an Integer.
// the number of parameters passed to the method.
if ( func_num_args() > 1 ) {
$param1 = func_get_arg(0);
$param2 = func_get_arg(1);
$this->_overloadedMethodImplementation2($param1,$param2)
} else {
$param1 = func_get_arg(0);
$this->_overloadedMethodImplementation1($param1)
}
}
protected function _overloadedMethodImplementation1($param1) {
// code 1
}
protected function _overloadedMethodImplementation2($param1,$param2) {
// code 2
}
}
there could be cleaner implementation, but this is just a sample.
PHP supports inheritance and interfaces. so you can have polymorphism using them. you can have an interface like this:
// file: MyBackupInterface.php
interface MyBackupInterface {
// saves the data on a reliable storage
public function saveData();
public function setData();
}
// file: myBackupAbstract.php
require_once 'MyBackupInterface.php';
class MyBackupAbstract implements MyBackupInterface {
protected $_data;
public function setData($data) {
$this->_data= $data;
}
// there is no abstract modifier in PHP. so le'ts avoid this class to be used in other ways
public function __construct() {
throw new Exception('this class is abstract. you can not instantiate it');
}
}
// file: BackupToDisk.php
require_once 'MyBackupAbstract.php';
class BackupToDisk extends MyBackupAbstract {
protected $_savePath;
// implement other methods ...
public function saveData() {
// file_put_contents() is a built-in function to save a string into a file.
file_put_contents($this->_savePath, $this->_data);
}
}
// file: BackupToWebService.php
require_once 'MyBackupAbstract.php';
class BackupToWebService extends MyBackupAbstract {
protected $_webService;
// implement other methods ...
public function saveData() {
// suppose sendData() is implemented in the class
$this->sendData($this->_data);
}
}
now in your application, you might use it like this:
// file: saveMyData.php
// some code to populate $myData
$backupSolutions = array( new BackupToDisk('/tmp/backup') , new BackupToWebService('webserviceURL') );
foreach ( $backupSolutions as $bs ) {
$bs->setData($myData);
$bs->saveData();
}
you are right, PHP is not strong typed language, we never mentioned that any of your $backupSolutions would be a 'MyBackupAbstract' or 'MyBackupInterface', but that would not stop us from having the nature of polymorphism which is different functionality over using the same methods.
PHP has class-based polymorphism, but lacks a formal mechanism for implementing argument-based polymorphism.
Class-based polymorphism means that you can think in terms of a base class, and have the methods being called depend on the final class. For instance, if you have an array of objects of various classes such as Triangle and Circle, and each of these classes extends the same class Shape, you can regard your array as merely a collection of shapes. You can loop through the shapes and call each shape's getArea() method. Polymorphism is the phenomenon whereby the getArea() method being called depends on the class of the object. If your shape is a Triangle, Triangle::getArea() gets called, if a Circle, then Circle::getArea() gets called--even though your code doesn't distinguish between a Circle and a Triangle but regards each object as merely a Shape. The same line of code results in a different block of code being executed, depending on the object's class.
Argument-based polymorphism is a feature of some strongly-typed languages, wherein multiple methods of the same name can be defined in a single class, provided that they have different parameters; then which method is called depends on the arguments provided. You can emulate argument-based polymorphism in weakly-typed languages like PHP by manually considering your argument types within your method. This is what jQuery does in order to implement a polymorphic API despite JavaScript's lack of native argument-based polymorphism.
So if by "supports polymorphism" you mean specifically that it provides a formal mechanism for implementing argument-based polymorphism, the answer is no. For any broader interpretation, the answer is yes. It stands to reason that the phenomenon of class-based polymorphism occurs in every Object-Oriented language; and it makes no sense for a language that performs implicit type conversion to implement argument-based polymorphism.
__call() and __callStatic() should support method overloading. More on this is available in the manual. Or what exactly are you after?
UPDATE: I just noticed the other replies.
For another way to overload a method, consider the following:
<?php
public function foo()
{
$args = func_get_arg();
}
Certainly not pretty, but it allows you to do virtually whatever you want.
You can still override methods, just not overload them. Overloading (in C++) is where you use the same method name for multiple methods, differing only in number and types of parameters. This would be hard in PHP since it's weak-typed.
Overriding is where the sub-class replaces a method in the base class. Which is really the basis for polymorphism, and you can do that in PHP.
Some call this duck typing.
PHP allows for polymorphic code that would generate an compile error in other languages. A simple illustrates this. First C++ code that generates an expected compile error:
class Base {};
class CommonDerivedBase {
public:
// The "= 0" makes the method and class abstract
// virtual means polymorphic method
virtual whoami() = 0;
};
class DerivedBase : public CommonDerivedBase {
public:
void whoami() { cout << "I am DerivedBase \n"; }
};
class Derived1 : public CommonDerivedBase {
public:
void whoami() { cout << "I am Derived1\n"; }
};
class Derived2 : public CommonDerivedBase {
public:
void whoami() { cout << "I am Derived2\n"; }
};
/* This will not compile */
void test_error(Base& db)
{
db.whoami();
}
The C++ compiler will issue this error message for the line db.whoami()
error: no member named 'whoami' in 'Base'
because Base does not have a method called whoami(). However, the analogous PHP code does not find such errors until run time.
class Base {}
abstract class DerivedCommonBase {
abstract function whoami();
}
class Derived1 extends DerivedCommonBase {
public function whoami() { echo "I am Derived1\n"; }
}
class Derived2 extends DerivedCommonBase {
public function whoami() { echo "I am Derived2\n"; }
}
/* In PHP, test(Base $b) does not give a runtime error, as long as the object
* passed at run time derives from Base and implements whoami().
*/
function test(Base $b)
{
$b->whoami();
}
$b = new Base();
$d1 = new Derived1();
$d2 = new Derived2();
$a = array();
$a[] = $d1;
$a[] = $d2;
foreach($a as $x) {
echo test($x);
}
test($d1);
test($d2);
test($b); //<-- A run time error will result.
The foreach loop works with the output
I am Derived1
I am Derived2
Not until you call test($b) and pass an instance of Base will your get a run time error. So after the foreach, the output will be
I am Derived1
I am Derived2
PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined method Base::whoami() in
home/kurt/public_html/spl/observer/test.php on line 22
About the only thing you can do to make the PHP safer would be to add a run time check
to test if $b is an instance of the class you intended.
function test(Base $b)
{
if ($b instanceof DerivedCommonBase) {
$b->whoami();
}
}
But the whole point of polymorphism is to eliminate such run time checks.
Polymorphism can be implemented in the following methods:
method overriding - normal pretty was as above
method overloading
You can create an illusion of method overloading by the magic method __call():
class Poly {
function __call($method, $arguments) {
if ($method == 'edit') {
if (count($arguments) == 1) {
return call_user_func_array(array($this,'edit1'), $arguments);
} else if (count($arguments) == 2) {
return call_user_func_array(array($this,'edit2'), $arguments);
}
}
}
function edit1($x) {
echo "edit with (1) parameter";
}
function edit2($x, $y) {
echo "edit with (2) parameter";
}
}
$profile = new Poly();
$profile->edit(1);
$profile->edit(1,2);
Expln:
1) Here we are utilizing the power of __call() of listening calls of
non-available methods and
2) after knowing it who had called with their inputs diverting them to desired
method
In php, we are actually working under the hood to give the desired behaviour and giving the feeling of method overloading
For what I’ve seen here php do not support polymorphism, nor overloading methods. You can hack your way to actually get close to both of these oop functionalities, but they are far from the original purpose of it. Many of the examples here either are extending a class or creating a hack to emuluate polymorphism.

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