Question

So I made a database class to handle all of my database requests. Everything goes through the constructor and it should return values.

The class is so

<?php

class Database {

    /**
     * This array holds all of the configuration settings for the database
     * @var array
     */
    private $config = array(
        'username'  =>  '',
        'password'  =>  '',
        'host'      =>  '',
        'database'  =>  ''
    );

    /**
     * Holds the parameters passed to the class
     * @var mixed
     */
    private $parameters;

    /**
     * Database Handler
     * @var [type]
     */
    private $DBH;

    /**
     * Class constructor
     * @param [type] $action     [description]
     * @param [type] $parameters [description]
     */
    public function __construct($action, $parameters){
        $this->parameters = $parameters;

        $this->DBH = new PDO("mysql:host=".$this->config['host'].";dbname=".$this->config['database'], $this->config['username'], $this->config['password']); 

        return $this->$action();
    }


    private function query(){
        $STH = $this->DBH->prepare($this->parameters);
        $STH->execute();
        $result = $STH->fetchColumn();
        echo "<br><br>RESULT:".$result."<br><br><br>";
        echo "<br><br>RESULT:".empty($result)."<br><br><br>";

        return (empty($result)) ? FALSE : TRUE;
    }
} 

I removed everything bar the function giving issues. It is meant to return true or false. Instead the return value when I call $result = new Database('query', $query); is an object with a ton of data

Any idea what I have done wrong?

Answer 1

PHP ignores what you return in __construct. If you create a new object with new then the new object is returned and not what the return in __construct says.

To achieve what you want you have to create a new function which executes the action for you outside of the constructor – like that:

class Database {
    // your code...

    public function __construct($parameters) {
        $this->parameters = $parameters;

        $this->DBH = new PDO("mysql:host=".$this->config['host'].
            ";dbname=".$this->config['database'],
            $this->config['username'],
            $this->config['password']); 
    }

    public function perform($action) {
        return $this->$action();
    }

    // rest of your code...
}

// usage:
$db = new Database($query);
$result = $db->perform('query'); // result should be a boolean.