While looking at the Laravel source, I noticed a lot of stuff like this:
A controller class:
class Controller extends BaseController
{
use AuthorizesRequests, AuthorizesResources, DispatchesJobs, ValidatesRequests;
}
One of its component traits:
trait AuthorizesRequests {
/**
* Authorize a given action against a set of arguments.
*
* #param mixed $ability
* #param mixed|array $arguments
*
* #return \Illuminate\Auth\Access\Response
*
* #throws \Illuminate\Auth\Access\AuthorizationException
*/
public function authorize($ability, $arguments = []) {
list($ability, $arguments) = $this->parseAbilityAndArguments($ability, $arguments);
return app(Gate::class)->authorize($ability, $arguments);
}
// ...
}
I have a couple of questions about this:
Does this pattern (abstracting re-usable functionality into traits) have a name?
Is this pattern used to good effect in any other projects?
If a trait requires dependencies, is there a best-practise way to inject them, instead of using a service locator (like app(), in this case)?
I'm considering using this approach in my code to share some general functionality between a couple of my classes - I'm considering creating a ChecksBarcodes trait, which will work with a repository of stock information, and sharing that trait between a few similar but unrelated product management process classes, which all need to check barcodes.
Traits, being introduced with PHP 5.4, in general solving one big problem of PHP: single inheritance. A rough guess from me: if PHP would support multi inheritance (inherit from more than one class) there wouldn't be traits.
Nevertheless, traits are a good thing to reduce duplications of code and furthermore provide same fuctionality to multiple classes.
As far as I can see, there is no real (pattern) name for using traits.
It is not a pattern per se, as compared to other Software design pattern, just call it traits ;)
Laravel and maybe more specifically the Cashier package are good examples of using traits. If somebody finds other good examples please mention it.
Traits can be extended by other traits. That of course creates more and more complexity. To extend you probably should consider other methods to bring a functionality to your class. "Chaining" of traits adds load of complexity.
Traits are similar to extending classes, but with a few differences
Traits don't have a constructor
Classes can only extend one class, but have multiple traits
They're similar to mixins in other languages. I guess you could say its an easy way to use the DRY principle.
Since traits don't have constructors, any dependencies they have would need to exist on the class they're used on. I think depending on the class to have something other than the trait would be a bad design pattern. So you would have to use a service locator to pull in dependencies.
If you would rather not use a service locator, I would recommend using a class rather than a trait. You could have a BarcodeChecker class that you could inject into the constructor of the classes you want to use it. Then instead of $this->checkBarcode() you would use $this->barcodeChecker->check(). I think that would be a better design pattern if the trait requires dependencies.
Related
I am looking for a way to add few custom methods which will be used in all models. I can imagine 3 ways of doing it :
Adding custom method to main Eloquent's Model.php class file(I want to avoid doing this as this is a core file)
Creating a custom model class with required custom methods, which will extend to eloquent's Model class and all the models in the project will extend to custom model class.
Adding a trait which will have my methods and include it inside all models
However, I want to do it more efficiently and best way possible. Is their any other way to do it?
PS I am using laravel 5.2 as its an old project.
Based on the comment discussion and adding my experience in Laravel I would suggest you to go either with #2 or #3 approach as #ceejayoz have specified in the comments
first one is definitely a bad approach as you need to modify the core which is not at all a good practice. Second and third are both good approaches.
But, before that you need to check your requirements if literally all models (including any future ones your app will ever have) need the extra functionality, however you can use traits for all models.
If I have the choice probably I will go for traits over custom models as traits are relatively simple then custom models
I am a beginner starting out in laravel 5.2 and I think these concepts below should be explained more straight forward than just reading documentation.
Service Providers
Service Container
Contracts
Facades
I think a good explanation and examples that can really help beginners understand how these 4 concepts fit together in the framework.
Service provider :
The so called service providers are the heartbeat of your Laravel application. They are the central element of the initialization process where all the relevant and required code is loaded by PHP. This includes all the essentials from the framework itself, but also any own and custom code you need to load.
Inversion of Control, or IoC :
Can't be explained easly (i only have few ideas about this im not a pro)
Facades :
The Facade pattern is a software design pattern which is often used in object oriented programming. A facade is, in fact, a class wrapping a complex library to provide a simpler and more readable interface to it. The Facade pattern can also be used to provide a unified and well-designed API to a group of complex and poorly designed APIs.
A Laravel facade is a class which provides a static-like interface to services inside the container. These facades, according to the documentation, serve as a proxy for accessing the underlying implementation of the container’s services.
MORE
Contracts :
LARACASTS FREE VIDEO
I know this is not enough! what you are asking is complicated stuff a single answer can't be enough
Ok, so first I agree with the others that laracasts is an amazing resource, that will really go into greater detail and break things down very simply.
That being said, the brief overview is as follows:
Service Container (IoC container) is a laravel core process that allows you to load objects with their dependencies gracefully. For example, If I have a controller method like this:
public function update(Request $request, $id)
{
...
}
IoC container is smart enough to resolve the Request and load up all the dependencies associated with the Request class to make sure it gets instantiated properly.
It also allows you to instantiate classes without having to fully pass along all the dependencies as follows:
class ProductRepo(Product $product)
{
public function get($id)
{
...
}
}
I can reference this class without loading it with dependency injection as follows: (make sure to pass in full namespace)
app('App\ProductRepo')->get($id);
This allows me to not have to pass in a Product Object, Laravel is smart enough to resolve the Product object because the IoC container is doing the magic behind the scenes.
Service Providers are a place for you to lace in custom behavior when booting up or instantiating a class. For example, Laravel by default uses a class called the EventServiceProvider. This class's job is to configure the Event system in Laravel to make sure to include all the custom event listeners you create. So if I wanted to make sure that when the EventDispatcher is being loaded up, it brings in all the necessary dependencies.
Contracts are really simple. They are just an allusion to php object oriented concept of Interfaces. This concept states that there are classes that establish rules. For Example:
interface SearchableInterface
{
public function search($data);
}
class BinarySearch implements SearchableInterface
{
public function search($data)
{
...
}
}
This states that any class that implements the SearchableInterface, must have a function search that accepts one parameter. This creates a 'contract' that any classes that implement the SearchableInterface will have to have this function, or the application will throw an error.
This is great for using interchangeable pieces (siblings) and not having to worry that the class is missing a function you need.
Last but not least is the Facade. I love facades. In a nutshell all this is doing is creating a static representation of a class that was not defined statically. So lets say I have a class that will get a document from S3.
class S3
{
public function get($file)
{
...
}
}
Without a facade you would first have to instantiate and then call get on the class in order to get something from S3.
$s3 = new S3;
$s3->get('myAwesomeFile');
Laravel allows you to easily register Facades so that you can just use this statically for readability and convenience.
S3::get('MyAwesomeFile');
All of this has been an over-simplification of each concept, but goes into some detail about some of the basics of each concept. Hope this helps!
I am developing a package for Laravel 5, and now I need to benefit from dependency injection to have a more scalable and relaible application, I don't know which approach is the best to take and why, this is a piece of my code and I need to injected the Lang class dependency
class MyController extends \App\Http\Controllers\Controller
{
public $text;
public $lang;
public function __construct()
{
// Some codes here
}
public function myFunction(){
$this->text = \Lang::get('package::all.text1');
}
}
In this link http://laravel.com/docs/4.2/ioc 2 approaches are suggested, Basic Usage and Automatic Resolution based on my understanding from the link
taking the first approach I need to add
App::bind('lang', function($app)
{
return new \Lang();
});
to the register part of application and then in the function I'll have something
like this :
public function myFunction()
{
$lang = \App::make('lang');
$this->text = $lang::get('package::all.text1');
}
The other way is to modify the constructor like
public function __construct(Lang $lang)
{
$this->lang = $lang;
}
And then instantiate object from Class like
$myController = App::make('MyController');
Which way is the better way to take for, considering that this class is a Controller and it will be called in the routes file, or please correct me if my understanding from the link is not right. please also inform me why you suggest any of those approaches.
It should be noted that using local IoC resolution ($app->make() stylee) is not much better than using the facades directly (Lang::get() stylee) - you're still very much relying on Laravel's specific classes without really making your code explicitly state that it needs these exact classes. So the general advice is to, as much as possible, code to an interface if you want your code to be as portable as possible.
Of course there are a couple of big downsides to this currently in PHP development:
These interfaces are not generally defined (except the PSR-3 LoggerInterface interface) so you still have to rely on a particular instance of the interface (in this case, Laravel's).
If you decide to make your own generic interface (or the FIG eventually creates some of these), the classes that Laravel provides for translation (for example) don't implement it anyway, so you then need to subclass the existing ones just to make it look like it implements your own interface. But hey, that's the current best practice, so I guess if you wanna be using the current best practices, code to an interface, and don't worry for the time being that the interface you're coding to is Laravel-specific.
But anyway, here are my thoughts on your specific question. First off I should say that I haven't actually used Laravel 5 yet (just the 4s), but I have generally followed its development.
If the class I am coding will use a given dependency quite a lot or as a core part of how the class works I will use constructor dependency injection. Examples here are the Request or some Repository class in a controller, or a business logic class in a console command class.
If what I need I only need for a specific purpose (maybe redirecting from a controller and needing to generate a URI) I will resolve a local version from the IoC container ($this->app->make()) and then use that. If I were using Laravel 5 and the method was called by Laravel directly (e.g. a controller's action method) I may use method injection for this, I'm not 100% sure.
As a final note, the general advice is that if your constructor method signatures get too big due to a lot of dependencies:
It's time to have a look at if your code relies too much on external dependencies. Maybe some of the functionality of your class can be extracted to its own class that splits the dependencies between the two.
You should consider using setter methods rather than constructor injection - so instead of accepting a Request object, you have a $class->setRequest() method. The downside of doing this is that you need to tell Laravel's IoC container how to instantiate your object (i.e. that these setters must be called). It's not that big a deal but something worth noting.
Relevant links:
Laravel 5's IoC article
Laravel 5's Controller injection advice
I have a class called Awesome and have used the ServiceProvider and the Facade to register it to the app. Now I can use it as Awesome::Things().
I want to add constants to this class, so I tried
<?php namespace Helper\Awesome;
class Awesome()
{
public static $MOVIE = 'I love the Lego Movie!";
}
but when I call Awesome::$MOVIE, I get Access to undeclared static property: Helper\\Aesome\\Facades\\AwesomeFacade::$MOVIE
Can someone help?
The short version is -- you don't really want to do that. Laravel facades aren't mean to be used like normal classes, and if your application uses them that way you'll likely confuse future developers.
Warning out of the way. When you create a "facade" in Laravel, you're actually creating a class alias. When you added Awesome to the alias list in app/config/app.php, at some point code like the following ran
class_alias('Helper\Aesome\Facades\AwesomeFacade','Awesome');
That means whenever you use a global non-namespaced class Awesome, PHP substitutes Helper\Aesome\Facades\AwesomeFacade. If you wanted to add constants, you'd need to add them to this class.
Laravel's able to pass through methods because of the base Facade class implements a __callStatic method that passes on your call to the actual service implementation object. Facades don't pass on static constant access. Additionally, PHP does not (appear to?) have similar magic methods for passing along requests for constants.
If you're curious about the in depth version of this answer, I'm currently writing a series on Laravel's object system, including some in-depth information about the facade implementation.
Could somebody explain is it possible to have potected, pivate methods in playfamewok's contolles except:
public static void method-action-name() {}
For example if I would have method like this:
protected static int doSomeWork() {}
and this method would be invoked in method-action-name() ..
public static void method-action-name() {
...
int resul = doSomeWork();
...
}
I do not want to have long action-method, so I would like to split it to smaller ones, and then reuse it in other action-methods.
I mean is it ok (from playframework's point of view) to have such method in controller side instead of having them in domain classes? In Spring Framework, we use BP (business process) beans for that, for example.
Is it ok to have such helper methods for business methods in playframework controllers ?
Added after having answer & comments:
For example if I have SearchController class then for that class would be nice to have methods like preSearch1(), preSearch2() what search() method would use, but if I move these methods (1,2) to another class then it should be class with name like SearchHelper then? in package named /src/helpers.. not very nice because they related to search too. But maybe then into /src/bp/SearchBP (bp=business-process). And then in controllers/Search i use /bp/SearchBP that use some Model object with .save() DAO methods (SearchBP can use Domain methods and Search class can use Domain methods as well)
The question here: what class ant package would be nice for those methods? (i just did watch it in examples - there alway very simple usage of controllers that use domain object that why i ask)
yes, you can. Controllers are normal classes, you can add whatever you want. It may not be recommended to clutter them with helper methods, I personally would move them to another class, but you can do what you say.
ANSWER TO EDIT:
The name of the package is "irrelevant", won't change it too much :). You can put them under controllers.support.search which would mean controllers.support is a package with helper classes and the subpackage search contains helper classes and methods related to search.
One alternative (which I like more) is to create a Service layer for that, in a "services" package. You seem to come from a Spring background, so it should come naturally to you. These services are instantiated in the controller as required, or maybe just used via static methods, and do the main business logic. That way the controller only tackles the "higher level" logic.
Another alternative is to move as much of that logic as possible into the Model (avoidid the Anemic Domain Model), and using the Model classes from the controller.
As most decisions in development, which one is better depends on your experience, possible impact/limitations in the codebase, practices in your project... anyway, you can always refactor. Just choose the one that you are more used to (it seems to be Services approach) and code away :)
Any behaviour that's complicated enough to be described as "business logic" (rather than "presentation logic") belongs in the model, not the controller. If your model does nothing but map to/from a set of database tables, then it isn't doing its job properly. Things like permissions and access control, in particular, should be enforced by the model.