Can I extend a class using more than 1 class in PH

Question

If I have several classes with functions that I need but want to store separately for organisation, can I extend a class to have both?

i.e. class a extends b extends c

edit: I know how to extend classes one at a time, but I'm looking for a method to instantly extend a class using multiple base classes - AFAIK you can't do this in PHP but there should be ways around it without resorting to class c extends b, class b extends a

Answer 1

Classes are not meant to be just collections of methods. A class is supposed to represent an abstract concept, with both state (fields) and behaviour (methods) which changes the state. Using inheritance just to get some desired behaviour sounds like bad OO design, and exactly the reason why many languages disallow multiple inheritance: in order to prevent "spaghetti inheritance", i.e. extending 3 classes because each has a method you need, and ending up with a class that inherits 100 method and 20 fields, yet only ever uses 5 of them.

Answer 2

Answering your edit :

If you really want to fake multiple inheritance, you can use the magic function __call().

This is ugly though it works from class A user's point of view :

class B {
    public function method_from_b($s) {
        echo $s;
    }
}

class C {
    public function method_from_c($s) {
        echo $s;
    }
}

class A extends B
{
  private $c;

  public function __construct()
  {
    $this->c = new C;
  }

  // fake "extends C" using magic function
  public function __call($method, $args)
  {
    $this->c->$method($args[0]);
  }
}


$a = new A;
$a->method_from_b("abc");
$a->method_from_c("def");

Prints "abcdef"

Answer 3

There are plans for adding mix-ins soon, I believe.

But until then, go with the accepted answer. You can abstract that out a bit to make an "extendable" class:

class Extendable{
  private $extender=array();

  public function addExtender(Extender $obj){
    $this->extenders[] = $obj;
    $obj->setExtendee($this);
  }

  public function __call($name, $params){
    foreach($this->extenders as $extender){
       //do reflection to see if extender has this method with this argument count
       if (method_exists($extender, $name)){
          return call_user_func_array(array($extender, $name), $params);
       }
    }
  }
}


$foo = new Extendable();
$foo->addExtender(new OtherClass());
$foo->other_class_method();

Note that in this model "OtherClass" gets to 'know' about $foo. OtherClass needs to have a public function called "setExtendee" to set up this relationship. Then, if it's methods are invoked from $foo, it can access $foo internally. It will not, however, get access to any private/protected methods/variables like a real extended class would.

Answer 4

One of the problems of PHP as a programming language is the fact that you can only have single inheritance. This means a class can only inherit from one other class.

However, a lot of the time it would be beneficial to inherit from multiple classes. For example, it might be desirable to inherit methods from a couple of different classes in order to prevent code duplication.

This problem can lead to class that has a long family history of inheritance which often does not make sense.

In PHP 5.4 a new feature of the language was added known as Traits. A Trait is kind of like a Mixin in that it allows you to mix Trait classes into an existing class. This means you can reduce code duplication and get the benefits whilst avoiding the problems of multiple inheritance.

Traits

Answer 5

Multiple inheritance seems to work at the interface level. I made a test on php 5.6.1.

Here is a working code:

<?php


interface Animal
{
    public function sayHello();
}


interface HairyThing
{
    public function plush();
}

interface Dog extends Animal, HairyThing
{
    public function bark();
}


class Puppy implements Dog
{
    public function bark()
    {
        echo "ouaf";
    }

    public function sayHello()
    {
        echo "hello";
    }

    public function plush()
    {
        echo "plush";
    }


}


echo PHP_VERSION; // 5.6.1
$o = new Puppy();
$o->bark();
$o->plush();
$o->sayHello(); // displays: 5.6.16ouafplushhello

I didn't think that was possible, but I stumbled upon in the SwiftMailer source code, in the Swift_Transport_IoBuffer class, which has the following definition:

interface Swift_Transport_IoBuffer extends Swift_InputByteStream, Swift_OutputByteStream

I didn't play with it yet, but I thought it might be interesting to share.

Answer 6

You could use traits, which, hopefully, will be available from PHP 5.4.

Traits is a mechanism for code reuse in single inheritance languages such as PHP. A Trait is intended to reduce some limitations of single inheritance by enabling a developer to reuse sets of methods freely in several independent classes living in different class hierarchies. The semantics of the combination of Traits and classes is defined in a way, which reduces complexity and avoids the typical problems associated with multiple inheritance and Mixins.

They are recognized for their potential in supporting better composition and reuse, hence their integration in newer versions of languages such as Perl 6, Squeak, Scala, Slate and Fortress. Traits have also been ported to Java and C#.

More information: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/traits