Question

I have 5 different model classes. Each one handles different types of data, but they all follow the same format.

I want each kind of model to share functions like toJson, toArray, etc.

There’s a bunch of hack ways I could do this, and I can figure those out, but there HAS TO be a better way.

Here’s my desired effect:

<?
something here{
    function toJson(){return json_encode($this->lastResult);}
}
class applications{
    function findAllFoo(){
        $this->lastResult = $this->db->foo->find();
        return $this;
    }
}

class users{
    function findAllBar(){
        $this->lastResult = $this->db->bar->find();
        return $this;
    }
}
$models = new models();

echo $models->applications->findAllFoo()->toJson();
echo $models->users->findAllBar()->toJson();

I could just do new applications($this) passing the models each an entire set of classes, but I’m sure there’s a way within standard practices to do this.

TL;DR – How do I have a set of classes that shares some helper functions, yet won’t conflict with the __construct function?

Answer 1

If all models share some functionality, why not have a “Model” base class for them?

abstract class Model {
    protected $lastResult;
    protected $db;

    public function __construct(DB $db) {
        $this->db = $db;
    }

    public function toJson() {
        return json_encode($this->lastResult);
    }
}

class Applications extends Model {
    public function findAllFoo() {
        $this->lastResult = $this->db->foo->find();
        return $this;
    }
}

class ModelBroker {
    public $applications;

    public function __construct() {
        $db = /* ... connection code here ... */;
        $this->applications = new Applications($db); // <-- dependency injection
    }
}

$models = new ModelBroker();
$json = $models->applications->findAllFoo()->toJson();