CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpoopclassinheritance
AlexMorley-Finch
AlexMorley-Finch

Reputation: 6975

php class to inherit only one method

I have these classes:

class User{
    private $user_ID;
    private $first_name;
    private $surname;
    ...

    private $website;
    private $company;

    function __construct($array){
        $this->user_ID            = $array["userId"];
        $this->first_name         = $array["first"];
        $this->surname            = $array["last"];
        $this->telephone          = $array["tele"];
        ...
    }
    public function addWebsite($array){
        $this->website = $array;
    }
    public function addCompany($array){
        $this->company = $array;
    }
    public function getData(){
        $array = array();
        foreach($this as $var => $value) {
            $array[$var] = $value;
        }
        return $array;
    }
}

class Website{
    private $webId;
    private $url;
    private $description;
    ...

    function __contruct($array){
        $this->webId           = $array["webId"];
        $this->url             = $array["url"];
        $this->description     = $array["desc"];
        ...
    }
}

the getData() method in User is exactly the same for the Website class.

so how can i get the website class to implement this method? But ONLY the getData() method

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1199

Answers (6)

Mihai Stancu
Mihai Stancu

Reputation: 16127

If you do not have Traits there was an older implementation of Mixins that you could use.

You may know that:

<?php

class A {
    public function B() {
        var_dump($this->data);
    }
}
class X {
    protected $data;
    public function Y() {
        A::B()
    }
}

$x = new X;
$x->Y(); // will execute the code for A::B 
         // but will assume the object context
         // of $x (of class X) and will have
         // access to $this->data
         // ! this is not a static call

Using this principle you can create a static array of class names and/or method names that you can "mix-in" or "use" (like traits) via the magic method __get. ?>

Upvotes: 0

Gordon
Gordon

Reputation: 317217

While inheritance forms an behaves-as relationship, this is not a situation for Inheritance. Your Website is not related to the User in any way, so there shouldn't be a relationship between them.

Having base classes like suggested elsewhere here will quickly lead to monolithic architecture and god objects. Those in turn lead to less maintainability, high coupling, fragile code and hampers reuse. Likewise, making everything public or resorting to similar means that defeat information hiding and widen the public API lead to similar problems and you will want to avoid them.

What you are looking for is Traits, but these are only supported as of PHP 5.4. The easiest approach is really just to duplicate that method in both classes. Keep in mind that you usually want to avoid code duplication, but in this case its the lesser evil over the other suggested alternatives.

A viable alternative would be to use an Introspection Service that uses Reflection to fetch the data from the object into an array. Although in general, you should put methods on the objects having the data the methods operate on.

Upvotes: 2

Marko
Marko

Reputation: 522

To make it type save you can define an interface for example "arraySerializable" which has the getData method. You can use this interface later in TypeHints instead of the class.

But this still doesn't give you the functionality. I suppose a common base class is not the thing you want here. So if you can't use traits you have to duplicate the code. This might be one of the rare cases where some lines duplicated code is ok.

Upvotes: 1

CodeCaster
CodeCaster

Reputation: 151738

As opposed to the other answerers, I think I should comment on your design. You want to create a method that exposes all private properties of any object. An object is, in most cases, somewhat more than simply a property bag, so in what situations would you need to know all properties? And why do you then mark them as private?

To solve the real problem, you should take a look at public properties, or private ones with getters and setters if you want to control the incoming and outgoing data.

If you however think you need all properties of a given object (and are willing to accept "hacks" like copypaste-programming, traits and whatnot), why not simply mark them as public and call get_object_vars()?

Upvotes: -2

josegil
josegil

Reputation: 365

if you are using php5.4 you can use traits instead of classes. It´s solve the cases witch you need the implementation of one method in two diferents classes.

Upvotes: 2

Jan Hančič
Jan Hančič

Reputation: 53929

Make another class that only has the getData method, and make both of your existing classes extend that new class.

Upvotes: 0

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