Creating helper for my application - php

Question

I have been creating a helper class for the Facebook PHP API in order to avoid reusing a lot of code. The helper works but the only problem is that its very slow.. and I also figured out why! when I initialize the class, the constructor is called twice! I checked in my code and the other elements which use this class only call it once (It's something inside the class itself) Could you please help me figure out what the problems could be?? Thanks!
class FbHelper
{
private $_fb;
private $_user;
function __construct()
{
// Initalize Facebook API with keys
$this->_fb = new Facebook(array(
'appId' => 'xxxxxxxxxxx',
'secret' => 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx',
'cookie' => true,
));
// set the _user variable
//
$this->doLog("Called Constructor");
//
$this->_user = $this->UserSessionAuthorized();
return $this;
}
function doLog($text)
{
// open log file <----- THIS GETS CALLED TWICE EVERY TIME I INITIALIZE THE CLASS!!
$filename = "form_ipn.log";
$fh = fopen($filename, "a") or die("Could not open log file.");
fwrite($fh, date("d-m-Y, H:i")." - $text\n") or die("Could not write file!");
fclose($fh);
}
function getUser() { return $this->_user; }
function getLoginUrl() { return $this->_fb->getLoginUrl(); }
function getLogoutUrl() { return $this->_fb->getLogoutUrl(); }
function UserSessionAuthorized()
{
// Checks if user is authorized, if is sends back user object
$user = null;
$session = $this->_fb->getSession();
if (!$session) return false;
try {
$uid = $this->_fb->getUser();
$user = $this->_fb->api('/me');
if ($user) return $user;
else return false;
}
catch (FacebookApiException $e) { return false; }
}
private function _rebuildSelectedFriends($selected_friends)
{
// Creates a new array with less data, more useful and less malicious
$new = array();
foreach ($selected_friends as $friend)
{
$f = array('id' => $friend['id'], 'name' => $friend['name']);
$new[] = $f;
}
return $new;
}
function GetThreeRandomFriends()
{
$friends = $this->_fb->api('/me/friends');
$n = rand(1, count($friends['data']) - 3);
$selected_friends = array_slice($friends['data'], $n, 3);
return $this->_rebuildSelectedFriends($selected_friends);
}
function UserExists($user_id)
{
try { $this->_fb->api('/' . $user_id . '/'); return true; }
catch (Exception $e) { return false; }
}
}

Answer 1

You must be calling the FbHelper class twice as your doLog function is in the constructor, therefore the repetition is somewhere higher up in your application and not in this class itself.