Inheritance Problem

[Sasuun]

I'm having problems with my classes inheriting methods and functions. In the past I've used a different method of accessing all of my classes within each other by making pointers to a class wrapping around all of my other classes so they interact with each other nicely. I did something like this

$Class = new Class;
$Class->someclass = new someclass;
$Class->someclass->class = &$class;

 

This time, I thought I'd try using inheritance for my controllers, so I could access all of my classes by wrapping them inside of an App_Base class

class someController extends App_Base
{
    someAction()
    {
        $this->inheritedClass->inheritedMethod()
    }
}

 

but my class isn't inheriting properly, Instead it only gets the values of variables at initiation of the original class, so my $requestPath, for example which is populated after initialization remains the same. Am I doing something wrong, or is that just how inheritance works.

 

I've included my dispatch function if it helps anyone, but I suspect the answer does not require reading it

 

function dispatch( $routes = null )
{
	////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	// do we have route rules present?
	////////////////////////////////////////////////////

	define( 'USE_ROUTES', ( $routes != null) ? true:false );

	$controller 	= strtolower( $this->getController( ));


	if ( $controller == "" )
	{
		$controller = $this->config->defaultController;
		$action			= strtolower( $this->getAction( 0 ));
		define('IS_DEFAULT_CONTROLLER', true);

	}
	else
	{
		$action			= strtolower( $this->getAction( ));
		define('IS_DEFAULT_CONTROLLER', false);	
	}

	if ( $action == "" )
	{
		$action = 'index';
	} 


	if ( USE_ROUTES )
	{
		////////////////////////////////////////////////////
		// Routes... check to see if the specified controller has a route...
		////////////////////////////////////////////////////
		if ( array_key_exists( $controller, $routes ))
		{
			$action		= $routes[ $controller ][ 'action' ];
			$controller = $routes[ $controller ][ 'controller' ];
			#reset our information to fit the route, set the action first or our controller will be overwriten with the new one

		}
	}

	////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	// check to see if the controller is present in the CONTROLLER_ROOT
	////////////////////////////////////////////////////
	if ( file_exists( CONTROLLER_ROOT . $controller . "Controller.php" ))
	{	
		require_once CONTROLLER_ROOT . $controller . "Controller.php";

		$controllerName = $controller . "Controller";
		$action			= $action . "Action";

		if ( class_exists( $controllerName ))
		{
			$Controller = new $controllerName;
			//check for everything and execute, if there is a problem, we throw an exception

			if ( method_exists( $Controller, $action ))
			{			
				$Controller->$action( );
			}
			else
			{
				if ( method_exists( $Controller, 'indexAction' ))
				{
					$Controller->indexAction();
				}
				else
				{
					$this->throwError( 'No index action defined' );
				}
			}
		}
		else
		{
			$this->throwError( $controllerName . " does not exist in " . $controllerName . ".php" );
		}
	}
	else
	{ 
		$this->throwError( $controller . "Controller does not exist" );
	}


}

[aschk]

Just looking at your first code post:

$Class = new Class;

$Class->someclass = new someclass;

$Class->someclass->class = &$class;

 

If you're using PHP5 you don't need to specify the & (reference) symbol. And instead I recommend using the "strategy" pattern.

I forsee the code being a bit more like this:

$class = new Class();
$class->setOtherInternalClass( new someClass() );

 

And internally you have a structure like this:

class Class {
  private $someClass;
  public function setOtherInternalClass( someClass $someClass) {
    $this->someClass = $someClass;
    $this->someClass->setInitializer( $this );
  }
}

class someClass {
  private $initializer;
  public function setInitializer( Class $class ) {
    $this->$intializer = $class;
  }
}

 

Bear in mind the above is VERY tightly coupled.

 

In regard to your 2nd code listing. If you want to access an inherited method (from a parent) then you just need to call that method. e.g.

class App_Base {
  public function baseMethod(){
    echo "this is a method from the base (parent) class";
  }
}

class someController extends App_Base {
  public function newChildMethod(){
    $this->baseMethod(); // because our class inherits from the App_Base class it has access to all its methods.
  }
}

I think you're confusing what inheritance is.

 

Hope that helps.

[448191]

You need some basic OOP guidance.

 

I feel dirty just reading this

 

$Class = new Class;

 

 

[deadimp]

http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.php

 

It looks like you're trying to find a way to call a parent's method.

If it isn't defined in the child class, you can simply call it as $this->blarg(). If blarg() is overloaded (right for polymorphism terminology?) in the child class, you can explicitly call the parent's method using parent::blarg() inside child::blarg() - though you can't explicitly call the parent's method from a child object outside an object's method scope.

If you're sure of your design, and you want to use that explicit calling stuff, here's an example:

class Base {
//Example with ctor
public function __construct() {
  echo "Base::ctor\n";
}
public function bleck() {
   echo "Base::bleck\n";
}
public function test() {
  echo "Base::test\n";
}
}

class Child extends Base {
public function __construct() {
  parent::__construct(); //Explicitly call parent's ctor method
  //Do your own stuff here
  echo "Child::ctor\n";
}
public function bleck() {
  $this->test();
  echo "Blah";
}
}

$obj=new Child();
$obj->bleck();

/*Output:
Base::ctor
Child::ctor
Base::test
Blah
*/

Just so you know, every class inherits stdClass. Unless making your own base object for your system is a dire need, use what PHP already has.

 

Also, what's the reason behind manually setting a reference in an object to itself? That's the exact reason for the the $this keyword.

[aschk]

I've seen a class setting a reference to itself before, in C++... don't ask me why though.