Question

Ok, guys. Here’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while:

As it’s possible to chain methods in PHP5, I wonder if it is possible to take the concept even further by in a smart way determining if a method is the last in the chain to be executed – and that’s without utilizing a third method named getResult()?

Normal method calling:

$myClass->dofirst(); // Data is returned from the dofirst-method

What I would like;

$myclass->dofirst()->sortOutputfromDofirstAndReturn();

The idea is that the second method, sortOutputfromDofirstAndReturn() would prevent the dofirst() method from returning, and instead perform the logic stated inside the second method, without needing a third method to bounce the return to the user.

Maybe a bit confusing so let me know if I need to clarify anything!

Answer 1

There are few possibilities:

Add one (or few special) methods (see Doctrien 1.2) that finish chain (execute is special)

$q = new Doctrine_Query();
$q->select('Foo')->where('bar = 1')->orderBy('bar')->execute();

If final result is always array like object than You can implement Iterator interface with Your chain logic.

class Chain implements Iterator { /* implementation */ }
$c = new Chain();
foreach ($c->first()->second() as $item) { /* do stuff */ }

Half stupid one. If Your result is string, than reimplement __toString method…