Object-Oriented PHP for Beginners

For many PHP programmers, object-oriented programming is a frightening concept, full of complicated syntax and other roadblocks. As detailed in my book, Pro PHP and jQuery, you’ll learn the concepts behind object-oriented programming (OOP), a style of coding in which related actions are grouped into classes to aid in creating more-compact, effective code.

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Understanding Object-Oriented Programming

Object-oriented programming is a style of coding that allows developers to group similar tasks into classes. This helps keep code following the tenet “don’t repeat yourself”

(DRY) and easy-to-maintain.

“Object-oriented programming is a style of coding that allows developers to group similar tasks into classes.”

One of the major benefits of DRY programming is that, if a piece of information changes in your program, usually only one change is required to update the code. One of the biggest nightmares for developers is maintaining code where data is declared over and over again, meaning any changes to the program become an infinitely more frustrating game of Where’s Waldo? as they hunt for duplicated data and functionality.

OOP is intimidating to a lot of developers because it introduces new syntax and, at a glance, appears to be far more complex than simple procedural, or inline, code. However, upon closer inspection, OOP is actually a very straightforward and ultimately simpler approach to programming.

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Understanding Objects and Classes

Before you can get too deep into the finer points of OOP, a basic understanding of the differences between objects and classes is necessary. This section will go over the building blocks of classes, their different capabilities, and some of their uses.

Recognizing the Differences Between Objects and Classes

Photos by Instant Jefferson and John Wardell

“Developers start talking about objects and classes, and they appear to be interchangeable terms. This is not the case, however.”

Right off the bat, there’s confusion in OOP: seasoned developers start talking about objects and classes, and they appear to be interchangeable terms. This is not the case, however, though the difference can be tough to wrap your head around at first.

A class, for example, is like a blueprint for a house. It defines the shape of the house on paper, with relationships between the different parts of the house clearly defined and planned out, even though the house doesn’t exist.

An object, then, is like the actual house built according to that blueprint. The data stored in the object is like the wood, wires, and concrete that compose the house: without being assembled according to the blueprint, it’s just a pile of stuff. However, when it all comes together, it becomes an organized, useful house.

Classes form the structure of data and actions and use that information to build objects. More than one object can be built from the same class at the same time, each one independent of the others. Continuing with our construction analogy, it’s similar to the way an entire subdivision can be built from the same blueprint: 150 different houses that all look the same but have different
families and decorations inside.

Structuring Classes

The syntax to create a class is pretty straightforward: declare a class using the class keyword, followed by the name of the class and a set of curly braces ({}):

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     // Class properties and methods go here
5. }
6. ?>

After creating the class, a new class can be instantiated and stored in a variable using the new keyword:

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1. $obj = new MyClass;

To see the contents of the class, use var_dump():

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1. var_dump($obj);

Try out this process by putting all the preceding code in a new file called test.php in [your local] testing folder:

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     // Class properties and methods go here
5. }
6. $obj = new MyClass;
7. var_dump($obj);
8. ?>

Load the page in your browser at http://localhost/test.php and the following should display:

1. object(MyClass)#1 (0) { }

In its simplest form, you’ve just completed your first OOP script.

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Defining Class Properties

To add data to a class, properties, or class-specific variables, are used. These work exactly like regular variables, except they’re bound to the object and therefore can only be accessed using the object.

To add a property to MyClass, add the following code to your script:

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5. }
6. $obj = new MyClass;
7. var_dump($obj);
8. ?>

The keyword public determines the visibility of the property, which you’ll learn about a little later in this chapter. Next, the property is named using standard variable syntax, and a value is assigned (though class properties do not need an initial value).

To read this property and output it to the browser, reference the object from which to read and the property to be read:

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1. echo $obj->prop1;

Because multiple instances of a class can exist, if the individual object is not referenced, the script would be unable to determine which object to read from. The use of the arrow (->) is an OOP construct that accesses the contained properties and methods of a given object.

Modify the script in test.php to read out the property rather than dumping the whole class by modifying the code as shown:

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5. }
6. $obj = new MyClass;
7. echo $obj->prop1; // Output the property
8. ?>

Reloading your browser now outputs the following:

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1. I’m a class property!

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Defining Class Methods

Methods are class-specific functions. Individual actions that an object will be able to perform are defined within the class as methods.

For instance, to create methods that would set and get the value of the class property $prop1, add the following to your code:

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5.     public function setProperty($newval)
6.     {
7.         $this->prop1 = $newval;
8.     }
9.     public function getProperty()
10.     {
11.         return $this->prop1 . ”<br />”;
12.     }
13. }
14. $obj = new MyClass;
15. echo $obj->prop1;
16. ?>

Note — OOP allows objects to reference themselves using $this. When working within a method, use $this in the same way you would use the object name outside the class.

To use these methods, call them just like regular functions, but first, reference the object they belong to. Read the property from MyClass, change its value, and read it out again by making the modifications below:

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5.     public function setProperty($newval)
6.     {
7.         $this->prop1 = $newval;
8.     }
9.     public function getProperty()
10.     {
11.         return $this->prop1 . ”<br />”;
12.     }
13. }
14. $obj = new MyClass;
15. echo $obj->getProperty(); // Get the property value
16. $obj->setProperty(“I’m a new property value!”); // Set a new one
17. echo $obj->getProperty(); // Read it out again to show the change
18. ?>

Reload your browser, and you’ll see the following:

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1. I’m a class property!
2. I’m a new property value!

“The power of OOP becomes apparent when using multiple instances of the
same class.”

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5.     public function setProperty($newval)
6.     {
7.         $this->prop1 = $newval;
8.     }
9.     public function getProperty()
10.     {
11.         return $this->prop1 . ”<br />”;
12.     }
13. }
14. // Create two objects
15. $obj = new MyClass;
16. $obj2 = new MyClass;
17. // Get the value of $prop1 from both objects
18. echo $obj->getProperty();
19. echo $obj2->getProperty();
20. // Set new values for both objects
21. $obj->setProperty(“I’m a new property value!”);
22. $obj2->setProperty(“I belong to the second instance!”);
23. // Output both objects’ $prop1 value
24. echo $obj->getProperty();
25. echo $obj2->getProperty();
26. ?>

When you load the results in your browser, they read as follows:

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1. I’m a class property!
2. I’m a class property!
3. I’m a new property value!
4. I belong to the second instance!

As you can see, OOP keeps objects as separate entities, which makes for easy separation of different pieces of code into small, related bundles.

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Magic Methods in OOP

To make the use of objects easier, PHP also provides a number of magic methods, or special methods that are called when certain common actions occur within objects. This allows developers to perform a number of useful tasks with relative ease.

Using Constructors and Destructors

When an object is instantiated, it’s often desirable to set a few things right off the bat. To handle this, PHP provides the magic method __construct(), which is called automatically whenever a new object is
created.

For the purpose of illustrating the concept of constructors, add a constructor to MyClass that will output a message whenever a new instance of the class is created:

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5.     public function __construct()
6.     {
7.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was initiated!<br />’;
8.     }
9.     public function setProperty($newval)
10.     {
11.         $this->prop1 = $newval;
12.     }
13.     public function getProperty()
14.     {
15.         return $this->prop1 . ”<br />”;
16.     }
17. }
18. // Create a new object
19. $obj = new MyClass;
20. // Get the value of $prop1
21. echo $obj->getProperty();
22. // Output a message at the end of the file
23. echo ”End of file.<br />”;
24. ?>

Note — __CLASS__ returns the name of the class in which it is called; this is what is known as a magic constant. There are several available magic constants, which you can read more about in the PHP manual.

Reloading the file in your browser will produce the following result:

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1. The class ”MyClass” was initiated!
2. I’m a class property!
3. End of file.

To call a function when the object is destroyed, the __destruct() magic method is available. This is useful for class cleanup (closing a database connection, for instance).

Output a message when the object is destroyed by defining the magic method
__destruct() in MyClass:

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5.     public function __construct()
6.     {
7.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was initiated!<br />’;
8.     }
9.     public function __destruct()
10.     {
11.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was destroyed.<br />’;
12.     }
13.     public function setProperty($newval)
14.     {
15.         $this->prop1 = $newval;
16.     }
17.     public function getProperty()
18.     {
19.         return $this->prop1 . ”<br />”;
20.     }
21. }
22. // Create a new object
23. $obj = new MyClass;
24. // Get the value of $prop1
25. echo $obj->getProperty();
26. // Output a message at the end of the file
27. echo ”End of file.<br />”;
28. ?>

With a destructor defined, reloading the test file results in the following output:

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1. The class ”MyClass” was initiated!
2. I’m a class property!
3. End of file.
4. The class ”MyClass” was destroyed.

“When the end of a file is reached, PHP automatically releases all resources.”

To explicitly trigger the destructor, you can destroy the object using the
function unset():

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5.     public function __construct()
6.     {
7.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was initiated!<br />’;
8.     }
9.     public function __destruct()
10.     {
11.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was destroyed.<br />’;
12.     }
13.     public function setProperty($newval)
14.     {
15.         $this->prop1 = $newval;
16.     }
17.     public function getProperty()
18.     {
19.         return $this->prop1 . ”<br />”;
20.     }
21. }
22. // Create a new object
23. $obj = new MyClass;
24. // Get the value of $prop1
25. echo $obj->getProperty();
26. // Destroy the object
27. unset($obj);
28. // Output a message at the end of the file
29. echo ”End of file.<br />”;
30. ?>

Now the result changes to the following when loaded in your browser:

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1. The class ”MyClass” was initiated!
2. I’m a class property!
3. The class ”MyClass” was destroyed.
4. End of file.

Converting to a String

To avoid an error if a script attempts to output MyClass as a string, another magic method is used called __toString().

Without __toString(), attempting to output the object as a string results in a fatal error. Attempt to use echo to output the object without a magic method in place:

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5.     public function __construct()
6.     {
7.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was initiated!<br />’;
8.     }
9.     public function __destruct()
10.     {
11.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was destroyed.<br />’;
12.     }
13.     public function setProperty($newval)
14.     {
15.         $this->prop1 = $newval;
16.     }
17.     public function getProperty()
18.     {
19.         return $this->prop1 . ”<br />”;
20.     }
21. }
22. // Create a new object
23. $obj = new MyClass;
24. // Output the object as a string
25. echo $obj;
26. // Destroy the object
27. unset($obj);
28. // Output a message at the end of the file
29. echo ”End of file.<br />”;
30. ?>

This results in the following:

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1. The class ”MyClass” was initiated!
2. Catchable fatal error: Object of class MyClass could not be converted to string in /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/testing/test.php on line 40

To avoid this error, add a __toString() method:

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5.     public function __construct()
6.     {
7.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was initiated!<br />’;
8.     }
9.     public function __destruct()
10.     {
11.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was destroyed.<br />’;
12.     }
13.     public function __toString()
14.     {
15.         echo ”Using the toString method: ”;
16.         return $this->getProperty();
17.     }
18.     public function setProperty($newval)
19.     {
20.         $this->prop1 = $newval;
21.     }
22.     public function getProperty()
23.     {
24.         return $this->prop1 . ”<br />”;
25.     }
26. }
27. // Create a new object
28. $obj = new MyClass;
29. // Output the object as a string
30. echo $obj;
31. // Destroy the object
32. unset($obj);
33. // Output a message at the end of the file
34. echo ”End of file.<br />”;
35. ?>

In this case, attempting to convert the object to a string results in a call to the getProperty() method. Load the test script in your browser to see the result:

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1. The class ”MyClass” was initiated!
2. Using the toString method: I’m a class property!
3. The class ”MyClass” was destroyed.
4. End of file.

Tip — In addition to the magic methods discussed in this section, several others are available. For a complete list of magic methods, see the PHP manual page.

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Using Class Inheritance

Classes can inherit the methods and properties of another class using the extends keyword. For instance, to create a second class that extends MyClass and adds a method, you would add the following to your test file:

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5.     public function __construct()
6.     {
7.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was initiated!<br />’;
8.     }
9.     public function __destruct()
10.     {
11.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was destroyed.<br />’;
12.     }
13.     public function __toString()
14.     {
15.         echo ”Using the toString method: ”;
16.         return $this->getProperty();
17.     }
18.     public function setProperty($newval)
19.     {
20.         $this->prop1 = $newval;
21.     }
22.     public function getProperty()
23.     {
24.         return $this->prop1 . ”<br />”;
25.     }
26. }
27. class MyOtherClass extends MyClass
28. {
29.     public function newMethod()
30.     {
31.         echo ”From a new method in ” . __CLASS__ . ”.<br />”;
32.     }
33. }
34. // Create a new object
35. $newobj = new MyOtherClass;
36. // Output the object as a string
37. echo $newobj->newMethod();
38. // Use a method from the parent class
39. echo $newobj->getProperty();
40. ?>

Upon reloading the test file in your browser, the following is output:

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1. The class ”MyClass” was initiated!
2. From a new method in MyOtherClass.
3. I’m a class property!
4. The class ”MyClass” was destroyed.

Overwriting Inherited Properties and Methods

To change the behavior of an existing property or method in the new class, you can simply overwrite it by declaring it again in the new class:

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5.     public function __construct()
6.     {
7.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was initiated!<br />’;
8.     }
9.     public function __destruct()
10.     {
11.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was destroyed.<br />’;
12.     }
13.     public function __toString()
14.     {
15.         echo ”Using the toString method: ”;
16.         return $this->getProperty();
17.     }
18.     public function setProperty($newval)
19.     {
20.         $this->prop1 = $newval;
21.     }
22.     public function getProperty()
23.     {
24.         return $this->prop1 . ”<br />”;
25.     }
26. }
27. class MyOtherClass extends MyClass
28. {
29.     public function __construct()
30.     {
31.         echo ”A new constructor in ” . __CLASS__ . ”.<br />”;
32.     }
33.     public function newMethod()
34.     {
35.         echo ”From a new method in ” . __CLASS__ . ”.<br />”;
36.     }
37. }
38. // Create a new object
39. $newobj = new MyOtherClass;
40. // Output the object as a string
41. echo $newobj->newMethod();
42. // Use a method from the parent class
43. echo $newobj->getProperty();
44. ?>

This changes the output in the browser to:

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1. A new constructor in MyOtherClass.
2. From a new method in MyOtherClass.
3. I’m a class property!
4. The class ”MyClass” was destroyed.

Preserving Original Method Functionality While Overwriting Methods

To add new functionality to an inherited method while keeping the original method intact, use the parent keyword with the scope resolution operator (::):

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1. <?php
2. class MyClass
3. {
4.     public $prop1 = ”I’m a class property!”;
5.     public function __construct()
6.     {
7.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was initiated!<br />’;
8.     }
9.     public function __destruct()
10.     {
11.         echo ’The class ”‘, __CLASS__, ’” was destroyed.<br />’;
12.     }
13.     public function __toString()
14.     {
15.         echo ”Using the toString method: ”;
16.         return $this->getProperty();
17.     }
18.     public function setProperty($newval)
19.     {
20.         $this->prop1 = $newval;
21.     }
22.     public function getProperty()
23.     {
24.         return $this->prop1 . ”<br />”;
25.     }
26. }
27. class MyOtherClass extends MyClass
28. {
29.     public function __construct()
30.     {
31.         parent::__construct(); // Call the parent class’s constructor
32.         echo ”A new constructor in ” . __CLASS__ . ”.<br />”;
33.     }
34.     public function newMethod()
35.     {
36.         echo ”From a new method in ” . __CLASS__ . ”.<br />”;
37.     }
38. }
39. // Create a new object
40. $newobj = new MyOtherClass;
41. // Output the object as a string
42. echo $newobj->newMethod();
43. // Use a method from the parent class
44. echo $newobj->getProperty();
45. ?>

This outputs the result of both the parent constructor and the new class’s constructor:

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1. The class ”MyClass” was initiated!
2. A new constructor in MyOtherClass.
3. From a new method in MyOtherClass.
4. I’m a class property!
5. The class ”MyClass” was destroyed.

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Assigning the Visibility of Properties and Methods

For added control over objects, methods and properties are assigned visibility. This controls how and from where properties and methods can be accessed. There are three visibility keywords: public, protected, and private. In addition to its visibility, a method or property can be declared as static, which allows them to be accessed without an instantiation of the class.

Reference: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/object-oriented-php-for-beginners/

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~ by Rithy Pheath on 05/27/2011.