Question

I’m playing with some design patterns, and wanted to create an example using the SPL’s observer pattern. Because it doesn’t make sense to have observers and subjects be completely generic, I wanted to extend the interfaces to make them more specific to the application at hand. The problem is that when I run the code below, I get errors like “DataAccess::update() must be compatible with that of SplObserver::update()”.

I know that I can make this code execute without errors by switching the method signatures to match those of the interfaces. My question is this: Why doesn’t it allow children of the classes defined in the signatures? Below, ModelObserver is a SplObserver, and Model is a SplSubject. I would have expected this to work. Am I missing something?

FYI, I know I could use the explicit method signatures as defined in the interface and use the instanceof keyword in my code logic to achieve the same thing. I was just hoping to find a more elegant solution. Thanks!

<?php
interface ModelObserver extends SplObserver {
}

class DataAccess implements ModelObserver {

    /*
     * (non-PHPdoc) @see SplObserver::update()
     */
    public function update(Model $subject) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    }
}

// Just a generic model for the example
class Model implements SplSubject {
    private $_properties = array ();
    private $_observers = array ();

    /*
     * generically handle properties you wouldn't want to do it quite like this
     * for a real world scenario
     */
    public function __get($name) {
        return $this->_properties [$name];
    }
    public function __set($name, $value) {
        $this->_properties [$name] = $value;
    }
    public function __call($method, $args) {
        if (strpos ( $method, 'get' ) === 0) {
            $name = lcfirst ( str_replace ( 'get', '', $method ) );
            return $this->_properties [$name];
        }

        if (strpos ( $method, 'set' ) === 0) {
            $name = lcfirst ( str_replace ( 'set', '', $method ) );
            $this->_properties [$name] = $args [0];
            return $this;
        }
    }
    public function __toString() {
        return print_r ( $this, true );
    }

    /*
     * (non-PHPdoc) @see SplSubject::attach()
     */
    public function attach(ModelObserver $observer) {
        $this->_observers [] = $observer;
        return $this;
    }

    /*
     * (non-PHPdoc) @see SplSubject::detach()
     */
    public function detach(ModelObserver $observer) {
        if (in_array ( $observer, $this->_observers )) {
            $f = function ($value) {
                if ($value != $observer) {
                    return $value;
                }
            };
            $observers = array_map ( $f, $this->_observers );
        }
        return $this;
    }

    /*
     * (non-PHPdoc) @see SplSubject::notify()
     */
    public function notify() {
        foreach ($this->_observers as $observer) {
            $observer->update($this);
        }
    }
}

$da = new DataAccess();

$model = new Model ();
$model->setName ( 'Joshua Kaiser' )->setAge ( 32 )->setOccupation ( 'Software Engineer' )
    ->attach($da);

echo $model;

Answer 1

Limiting DataAccess::update() to accept your child Model breaks the contract of this interface.

True, all Model objects are of class SplSubject , but not all SplSubject are of class Model. An interface is a contract guaranteeing that an implementing class it supports everything the interface supports.

Your code, if it worked would be limiting the DataAccess::update() method to only the Model sub class and not the wider parent class SplSubjects . You cannot narrow the scope of the parameter passed to method defined by an interface.

Let’s say you added a property public $foo to the Model class. If it were allowed, you could in your DataAccess::update() method you uses that property $foo. Someone could come along and extend SplSubjects to a child OddModel which didn’t have a $foo property. They could no longer pass the OddModel into your DataAccess::update() function–if they could it would break as no $foo property exists for the OddModel.

This is the whole idea behind interfaces, by implementing they you agree 100% to support what is defined by the interface. In this case your interface says:

if you implement me, you must accept every SplSubject or class that extends SplSubject

You’re implementation of the interface attempts to break the contract.