Question

This article is similar to my needs, but I’m more curious about a specific solution to it, and if it’s a good or bad idea to do it. Sharing objects between PHP classes

Say, like in the link above, I have an object I want to pass to multiple classes, say a $db object.

Instead of using dependency injection and passing it to each method’s constructor, is it ever a good idea to let all the classes extend a Base class, that stores the $db object as a property?

For example:

abstract class Base {
    protected static $_db;
    public function setDatabase( Database $db ) {
        $this->_db = $db;
    }
    public function getDatabase() {
        return $this->_db;
    } 
} 

class SomeClass extends Base {
    public function doStuff() {
       $result = $this->getDatabase()->query(.....);
    }
}

Which would mean all classes that extend Base need not worry about grabbing/checking/setting the $db themselves, as they’d already have that object as a property as soon as the class is defined.

I know dependency injection is the usual way to go, but is this ever a viable solution?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You still have to set the db on each instance of the class – setting it on one instance doesnt set it on all instances… unless of course its a static property.