Basic setup. I have a classA instance which is a subclass of classX ... On construction (or sometime else), I want it to load another class classB which is also a subclass of classX and replace itself with classB in situ. Sort of like a factory, but one that replaces itself transparently. If need be, I can wrap classB with classA if there is a way to (at runtime) change the subclass of an object.
Currently I am using classA::__call() to emulate MRO magic, but is seems very inelegant. This needs to be done transparently to the caller of classA/B so that to the outside world, it isn't aware that classA has replaced itself with classB after construction (or anywhere else for that matter).
I know PHP can be a bit thin when doing things like this ... I am suspecting we can't, but it would be handy for my situation.
Also, 5.3 but ideally (yuck) 5.2/x
Thanks in advance (wishing I was coding in Python)
Ok, I've taken an interest in this question because I've reached the point where I'd like to discover the exact limits of PHP, including little hacks like this. Hopefully, I'll make sense this late at night and a few beers in me. Because of the ugly hackishness, I'm actually expecting to be downvoted.
Obviously, you can't do $this = $that. You also can't change the global variable you're currently trying to make into an object while it's being constructed, and attempting to do so will be ignored. As Charles said earlier, this can't be reasonably done. Not with clone, not serialize(), nothing within __construct().
So, unreasonably if you want $a to first become an object of class A, then convert mid-creation to class B, try this pseudo method: You'll have to call __construct of class A twice in a row. First time to handle construction of class A. Second time to complete the object converting it to class B. Class A handles the first half of construction, and class B the second half:
class A {
function __construct() {
$args = func_get_args(); // just to tell us the first round of __construct already occured
if (array_key_exists(0, $args) AND $args[0]) {
$GLOBALS['a'] = new B($GLOBALS['a']);
// stop because "reconstruction" has stopped. Nothing else you can do to $a in this scope.
$this->aprop2 = "yay";
// Seriously, stop. Don't bother putting more code at this point, you're wasting your time. Consider $a 'converted and returned' already.
}
// build on an object of class a here
}
}
class B {
function __construct($var) {
// maybe you'd like to do something with old $a? If so, here's $var for you
// continue constructing where A left off.
}
}
$a = new A(); // object of class A
$a->__construct(true); // object of class B
Maybe instead make another method of class A named more importantly sounding, which does the same thing to convert the global $a into object of class B, just so it doesn't look so stupid as my example. In other words, you're probably already doing it as best as PHP allows.
Edit: Really though, the above is nothing more than $a = new A(); $a = new B($a);. For better code readability and maintainability, you may want not to use my example and instead opt to implement a factory or handler class that creates and juggles these objects for you. I found a brief and insightful www.ibm.com article explaining the concept of factories how they are applied in PHP. Maybe conceptually, you want a static class that acts like a cd changer, and this is where Return by Reference - to work with a variable reference to the object in any scope - and Variable Objects (ref: midir's comments on that page) - to dynamically set or work with the object - comes in handy.
This is not currently possible in PHP...
Without doing stupid things.
If every instance of the object is a reference, and those references can be found in $GLOBALS, and the object knows what every one of those instances is called, you could replace each and every reference of the old object with your new object. The outside world won't know the difference.
This is, however, a spectacularly awful idea. Using __call magic is probably the least insane way of accomplishing your goal.
Edit: There's always runkit, which will let you do things like add and remove methods from classes. However, it's a PECL extension and might not even work correctly...
Related
I'm pretty proficient with PHP, outside of OOP - which I am just now starting to jump in to.
I've been watching videos and reading tutorials, but they are all still pretty confusing...
If I have
FILE 1 (class.time.php)
class Time {
function GetTime(){
$time = date('H:i:s');
printf($time);
}
}
and then in a nother php page I've got
FILE 2 (page.php)
I can do
include('class.time.php');
and then anywhere in this page I can then do
$time = new Time; //Calling the class and setting the class to a variable
$time->GetTime(); //This is BASICALLY saying (run the 'GetTime' function in the 'Time Class'
My main question is, is the comment above (This is BASICALLY saying.....) correct? or is there a better way to think of it?
regarding method calls
I would make one correction to your statement, hinting a little more accurately at what Object Orientation is all about. Your comment reads:
run the 'GetTime' function in the 'Time Class'
Which is only kinda accurate, and expounding on it may clarify OOP for you. For the purposes of this post, I might rephrase it this way:
run the 'GetTime' method (which is defined in the Time class) bound to the object stored in $time
See the difference? You aren't just calling a function from a class, you are saying "get the processing instructions from the class, but bind those instructions to this specific object and then execute.
It may sound like mincing words, but it's critical to understanding encapsulation. Objects of a class share their method definitions, but they do not share data.
You can think of an object as essentially a set of two things:
A block of memory holding it's own, personal data
A pointer to a set of methods with special access to that data
(the "special" nature of the methods' relationship to the data is either implicit or explicit, it's up to you)
The distinction is readily evident when you start using "member variables" (sometimes called "object properties", "instance variables (aka ivars)", or similar names). Consider this sample code:
class Person {
public $name;
public printName() {
echo $this->name;
}
}
$me = new Person();
$you = new Person();
$me->name = "Chris";
$you->name = "Alex";
$me->printName(); // "Chris"
$you->printName(); // "Alex"
This highlights the fact that each object has it's own memory for instance variables. They share the definition of those variables, as well as the blocks of code written to process those variables.
The special variable $this is of particular interest to my overall intention with this answer: the same variable in the same method definition actually points to a different object depending on which object you call the method on.
regarding new
Now to the previous line, where your comment reads (in regard to $time = new Time):
Calling the class and setting the class to a variable
The way I would phrase it is:
Make an instance of this class, and allow me to access the instance through $time
That word, instance will be a big concept to get solid before moving on. You don't call a class, you call a method, and you don't (in PHP at least) set the value of variables to be a class, you set them to point to instances of the class. Sometimes people use the words instance and object interchangeably, which is fine. But you should not use them interchangeably with the word class.
Let's get technical:
When you use the new operator, technically you are telling PHP to do two things:
grab some fresh memory, exactly enough to store all the member variables defined in the class
call a special method on that new object to allow me to initialize my object
So if you call new twice, you grab enough memory for 2 objects, and so on. PHP uses your class definition to figure out how much memory to allocate for you, and find the special method to call.
That special method is called __construct, and is guaranteed to be called when your objects are created, with that special $this variable pointing to your shiny new memory. Here's a sample of how you might use it:
class Foo {
private $createdTime;
public function __construct() {
$this->createdTime = time();
}
}
$myFoo = new Foo;
Even though you don't see it, __construct() was called and the value of $createdTime was initialized.
Yes, basically your assumption is correct (apart from syntax errors).
However thats not a very good OO design.
Have a look at this, it give some good examples of OO design: http://www.math-cs.gordon.edu/courses/cs211/ATMExample/
That is correct, but the syntax should be:
$time = new Time();
$time->GetTime();
(don't forget the parentheses, otherwise you are referring to class properties)
Also, it is a good idea to declare your methods as public, protected, or private. If you are going to call the GetTime method from outside the class, it would need to be public.
Since in this case "get time" will never change and accepts no parameters, you would do best to put this into a static method, since it's a waste to instantiate a class in this situation
eg:
class Time {
static public function GetTime(){
$time = date('H:i:s');
printf($time);
}
}
Time::GetTime(); // gets the time, no need to do $time = new Time();
In my opinion you are doing it correct, but for using a simple built-in date function, using it via class would probably just over complicate it.
Following is an excellent article for learning OOP in PHP
PHP OOP for beginners
I'm trying to grasp the Open/Closed principle (in my case for PHP, but that shouln't really make a difference).
The way i understand it is that a class is never open for modification. Only for bug fixing. If i wanted to add new code to the class, then i'd have to create a new one and extend the 'old' class. That's the only way i can add new code to it.
In a way i can see the advantages of this. Because basically you create some sort of versioning system, where old code always work, but you can always try to use the new classes too.
But how does this work in practice? I mean, suppose i have the following class:
class MyObject
{
public function doSomething()
{
echo 'Im doing something';
}
}
So somewhere i'm probably instantiating this class:
$obj = new MyObject();
But then i decide that it's good to have another method in that object. So i can do something else too. According to the OCP i can't modify the class. So i have to create a new one, which extends to old one right?
First problem. How do i call the new class? Because it isn't really a complete new object. Like. a User object is a User object. I can't suddenly give it completely diffent name just because it needs another method. Anyway, i create the new class:
class MyNewObject extends MyObject
{
public function doSomethingElse()
{
echo 'Im doing something else now';
}
}
Now this also means i have to change the line of code where i instantiated the "MyObject" class and replace it with the "MyNewObject" class, right..? And if that's done in more than one place, then i have to search through my source code... (Think about a method in a controller class, which almost always uses the 'new' keyword to instantiate certain classes).
The same basically applies to inheritance. I'd have to find each class the inherits the old class and have to replace that with the new class.
So basically my questions are:
How do you name the new classes which have the new methods? Just becasue i added some new functionality, doesn't mean i can give the class a whole new name...
And what if the 'old' classs is instantiated (or inherited) from multiple places. Then i'd have to find all of those places... Where's the gain?
The Open Closed Principle isn't intended to be used as a kind of version control system. If you really need to make changes to the class, then go ahead and make those changes. You don't need to create new classes and change all the places that instantiated the old one.
The point of the Open Closed Principle is that a well-designed system shouldn't require you to change existing functionality in order to add new functionality. If you are adding a new class to the system, you shouldn't need to search through all your code to find the places where you need to reference that class or have special cases for it.
If the design of your class isn't flexible enough to handle some new piece of functionality, then by all means change the code in your class. But when you change the code, make it flexible so you can handle similar changes in the future without code changes. It's meant to be a design policy not a set of handcuffs to prevent you from making changes. With good design decisions, over time your existing code will require fewer and fewer changes when you add new functionality to the system. It's an iterative process.
I would argue that by adding a function, you're not modifying the class behavior.
In all the instances where doSomething() is currently being called in your app, simply by adding doSomethingElse() to the class will have no effect. Since you're not changing doSomething(), the behavior is the same as it was before.
Once you determine that your doSomething() implementation isn't cutting it for certain circumstances, you can extend the class and override doSometing(). Again, the original still behaves the same as it always did, but now you have a new doSomething() to work with also.
I realize that this goes against the strict definition of open/closed, but this is the real world, and that's how I interpreted that principle in my code.
You need to create a constructor in your MyNewObject class which calls the parent class' constructor:
function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
}
This way you can instantiate the new class and still access all the functionality of the extended one.
You can then also override any function in the parent class (as long as it is not marked final of course).
So you could do:
$newObj = new MyNewObject();
$newObj->doSomething();
$newObj->doSomethingElse();
PHPUnit's getMock($classname, $mockmethods) creates a new object based on the given class name and lets me change/test the behavior of the methods I specified.
I long for something different; it's changing the behavior of methods of an existing object - without constructing a new object.
Is that possible? If yes, how?
When thinking about the problem I came to the conclusion that it would be possible by serializing the object, changing the serialized string to let the object be instance of a new class that extends the old class plus the mocked methods.
I'd like some code for that - or maybe there is such code already somewhere.
While it would certainly be possible to create the to-be-mocked object again, it's just too complicated to do it in my test. Thus I don't want to do that if I don't really really really have to. It's a TYPO3 TSFE instance, and setting that up once in the bootstrapping process is hard enough already.
I know this answer is rather late, but I feel for future viewers of this question there now exists a simpler solution (which has some drawbacks, but depending on your needs can be much easier to implement). Mockery has support for mocking pre-existing objects with what they call a "proxied partial mock." They say that this is for classes with final methods, but it can be used in this case (although the docs do caution that it should be a "last resort").
$existingObjectMock = \Mockery::mock($existingObject);
$existingObjectMock->shouldReceive('someAction')->andReturn('foobar');
It acts by creating a proxy object which hands all method calls and attribute gets/sets to the existing object unless they are mocked.
It should be noted, though, that the proxy suffers from the obvious issue of failing any typechecks or typehints. But this can be usually avoided, because the $existingObject can still be passed around. You should only use the $existingObjectMock when you need the mock capabilities.
Not all pre-existing code can be tested. Code really needs to be designed to be testable. So, while not exactly what you're asking for, you can refactor the code so that the instantiation of the object is in a separate method, then mock that method to return what you want.
class foo {
function new_bar($arg) { return new bar($arg); }
function blah() {
...
$obj = $this->new_bar($arg);
return $obj->twiddle();
}
}
and then you can test it with
class foo_Test extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase {
function test_blah() {
$sut = $this->getMock('foo', array('new_bar', 'twiddle'));
$sut->expects($this->once())->method('new_bar')->will($this->returnSelf());
$sut->expects($this->once())->method('twiddle')->will($this->returnValue('yes'));
$this->assertEquals('yes', $sut->blah());
}
}
Let me start of by saying: Welcome to the dark side of unit testing.
Meaning: You usually don't want to do this but as you explained you have what seems to be a valid use case.
runkit
What you can do quite easily, well not trivial but easier than changing your application architecture, is to change class behavior on the fly by using runkit
runkit_method_rename(
get_class($object), 'methodToMock', 'methodToMock_old'
);
runkit_method_add(
get_class($object), 'methodToMock', '$param1, $param2', 'return 7;'
);
runkit::method_add
and after the test to a method_remove and the rename again. I don't know of any framework / component that helps you with that but it's not that much to implement on your own in a UglyTestsBaseTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase.
Well...
If all you have access to is a reference to that object (as in: The $x in $x = new Foo();) i don't know of any way to say: $x, you are now of type SomethingElse and all other variables pointing to that object should change too.
I'm going to assume you already know things like testing your privates but it doesn't help you because you don't have control over the objects life cycle.
The php test helpers extension
Note: the Test-Helper extension is superseded by https://github.com/krakjoe/uopz
What also might help you out here is: Stubbing Hard-Coded Dependencies using the php-test-helpers extension that allows you do to things like Intercepting Object Creation.
That means while your application calls $x = new Something(); you can hack PHP to make it so that $x then contains an instance of YourSpecialCraftedSomething.
You might create that classing using the PHPUnit Mocking API or write it yourself.
As far as i know those are your options. If it's worth going there (or just writing integration / selenium tests for that project) is something you have to figure out on your own as it heavily depends on your circumstances.
Writing a PHP app and have several classes that only have static methods (no need for instance methods). An example of one is NumericValidator, which has methods like checkInteger($toCheck) which checks to make sure the argument you pass it is of type int, and checkGreaterThan($lOperand, $rOperand), which makes sure that the left operand is greater than the right operand, etc.
I know I could just throw each of these methods into a PHP file without putting them inside of a class, but I want to take an OOP approach here in case the API evolves to require instantiating NumericValidator.
But it does beg the question: how is a class with 100% static methods any different than have a class implement a singleton design pattern, where every reference used throughout the code base invokes the same instance?
For example, here is what my code looks like now:
public function doSomething($p_iNum)
{
if(!NumericValidator::checkInteger($p_iNum))
// throw IllegalArgumentException
// ...
}
But I could turn all of NumericValidator's static methods into non-static instance methods, forcing the programmer to instantiate it, and then implement a singleton design pattern so you can only ever reference 1 instance of it:
public function doSomething($p_iNum)
{
NumericValidator $nv = NumericValidator::getInstance();
if(!nv->checkInteger($p_iNum))
// throw IllegalArgumentException
// ...
}
Finally, my question: which is better and more in keeping with best practices? Are there performance considerations? How would either approach affect things like concurrency, or requests coming from multiple users?
I would use a static class in your example. The differentiator I would use is if there is any state of the properties of an instance you are trying to preserve across access. This is what a singleton is designed for. The static class gives organized access to methods in a namespace which is helpful for clarity in your code but it does not have any properties about itself.
So yes you can use a singleton but it would be bad form because there are no instance properties that you want to make available across page accesses.
Hope this helps.
Use Singleton instead of static class only if you going to pass instance of NumericValidator in variable to some function.
In PHP 5.3 you can get instance of static class:
class test
{
public static function instance()
{
print 'zz';
}
}
$z = new test;
$z->instance();
Don't care about concurrency requests in PHP, it's single threaded, each process executes own code.
I currently have a method within my class that has to call other methods, some in the same object and others from other objects.
class MyClass
{
public function myMethod()
{
$var1 = $this->otherMethod1();
$var2 = $this->otherMethod2();
$var3 = $this->otherMethod3();
$otherObject = new OtherClass();
$var4 = $otherObject->someMethod();
# some processing goes on with these 4 variables
# then the method returns something else
return $var5;
}
}
I'm new to the whole TDD game, but some of what I think I understood to be key premises to more testable code are composition, loose coupling, with some strategy for Dependency Injection/Inversion of Control.
How do I go about refactoring a method into something more testable in this particular situation?
Do I pass the $this object reference to the method as a parameter, so that I can easily mock/stub the collaborating methods? Is this recommended or is it going overboard?
class MyClass
{
public function myMethod($self, $other)
{
# $self == $this
$var1 = $self->otherMethod1();
$var2 = $self->otherMethod2();
$var3 = $self->otherMethod3();
$var4 = $other->someMethod();
# ...
return $var5;
}
}
Also, it is obvious to me that dependencies are a pretty big deal with TDD, as one has to think about how to inject a stub/mock to the said method for tests. Do most TDDers use DI/IoC as a primary strategy for public dependencies? at which point does it become exaggerated? can you give some pointers to do this efficiently?
These are some good questions... let me first say that I do not really know JS at all, but I am a unit tester and have dealt with these issues. I first want to point out that JsUnit exists if you are not using it.
I wouldn't worry too much about your method calling other methods within the same class... this is bound to happen. What worries me more is the creation of the other object, depending on how complicated it is.
For example, if you are instantiating a class that does all kinds of operations over the network, that is too heavy for a simple unit test. What you would prefer to do is mock out the dependency on that class so that you can have the object produce the result you would expect to receive from its operations on the network, without incurring the overhead of going on the network: network failures, time, etc...
Passing in the other object is a bit messy. What people typically do is have a factory method to instantiate the other object. The factory method can decide, based on whether or not you are testing (typically via a flag) whether or not to instantiate the real object or the mock. In fact, you may want to make the other object a member of you class, and within the constructor, call the factory, or make the decision right there whether or not to instantiate the mock or the real thing. Within the setup function or within your test cases you can set special conditions on the mock object so that it will return the proper value.
Also, just make sure you have tests for your other functions in the same class... I hope this helps!
Looks like the whole idea of this class is not quite correct. In TDD your are testing classes, but not methods. If a method has it own responsibility and provides it's own (separate testable) functionality it should be moved to a separate class. Otherwise it just breaks the whole OOP encapsulation thing. Particularly it breaks the Single Responsibility Principle.
In your case, I would extract the tested method into another class and injected $var1, $var2, $var3 and $other as dependencies. The $other should be mocked, as well any object which tested class depends on.
class TestMyClass extends MyTestFrameworkUnitTestBase{
function testMyClass()
{
$myClass = new MyClass();
$myClass->setVar1('asdf');
$myClass->setVar2(23);
$myClass->setVar3(78);
$otherMock = getMockForClassOther();
$myClass->setOther($otherMock);
$this->assertEquals('result', $myClass->myMethod());
}
}
Basic rule I use is: If I want to test something, I should make it a class. This is not always true in PHP though. But it works in PHP in 90% of cases. (Based on my experience)
I might be wrong, but I am under the impression that objects/classes should be black boxes to their clients, and so to their testing clients (encapsulating I think is the term I am looking for).
There's a few things you can do:
The best thing to do is mock, here's one such library: http://code.google.com/p/php-mock-function
It should let you mock out only the specific functions you want.
If that doesn't work, the next best thing is to provide the implementation of method2 as a method of an object within the MyClass class. I find this one of the easier methods if you can't mock methods directly:
class MyClass {
function __construct($method2Impl) {
$this->method2Impl = $method2Impl;
}
function method2() {
return $this->method2Imple->call();
}
}
Another option is to add an "under test" flag, so that the method behaves different. I don't recommend this either - eventually you'll have differing code paths and with their own bugs.
Another option would be to subclass and override the behaviors you need. I -really- don't suggest this since you'll end up customizing your overridden mock to the point that it'll have bugs itself :).
Finally, if you need to mock out a method because its too complicated, that can be a good sign to move it into its own object and use composition (essentially using the method2Impl technique i mentioned above).
Possibly, this is more a matter of single responsibility principle being violated, which is feeding into TDD issues.
That's a GOOD thing, that means TDD is exposing design flaws. Or so the story goes.
If those methods are not public, and are just you breaking apart you code into more digestable chunks, honestly, I wouldn't care.
If those methods are public, then you've got an issue. Following the rule, 'any public method of a class instance must be callable at any point'. That is to say, if you're requiring some sort of ordering of method calls, then it's time to break that class up.