Question

I need to organize some kind of access control to object methods when it is used in different contexts (API’s in my system). Here is code example:

    class A
    {
      public function doA(){}
      public function doB(){}
    }

    class APIAClient
    {
      public function getA()
      {
        return new A();
      }
    }

    class APIBClient {
      public function getA()
      {
        return new A();
      }
    }

In APIAClient object A should have both methods doA() and doB(), but in APIBClient should not have doB() method.

For now I’ve implemented APIBClientAProxy (which is returned by APIBCleint->getA())

   class APIBClientAProxy
   {
     private $a = new A;
     public function doA()
     {
       $this->a->doA()
     }
   }

But may be there is a better pattern for solving my problem, without using a additional proxy object for every context (i.e. API). I’m thinking about magic __call method with list of allowed methods in particular context, but magic calls is hard do document and documentation is the big point in my app (API’s should be documented well)

Thanks!

Answer 1

Instead of inheritance you can use composition through traits (introduced in PHP 5.4).

First define traits

trait A {
  public function doA() {
    // do something here
  }
}

trait B {
  public function doB() {
    // do something here
  }
}

then use those traits in your class declaration

class APIAClient {
  use A, B

}

class APIBClient {
  use A
}