Creating the Singleton design pattern in PHP5

Question

How would one create a Singleton class using PHP5 classes?

Answer 1

class Database{

        //variable to hold db connection
        private $db;
        //note we used static variable,beacuse an instance cannot be used to refer this
        public static $instance;

        //note constructor is private so that classcannot be instantiated
        private function __construct(){
          //code connect to database  

         }     

         //to prevent loop hole in PHP so that the class cannot be cloned
        private function __clone() {}

        //used static function so that, this can be called from other classes
        public static function getInstance(){

            if( !(self::$instance instanceof self) ){
                self::$instance = new self();           
            }
             return self::$instance;
        }


        public function query($sql){
            //code to run the query
        }

    }


Access the method getInstance using
$db = Singleton::getInstance();
$db->query();

Answer 2

protected  static $_instance;

public static function getInstance()
{
    if(is_null(self::$_instance))
    {
        self::$_instance = new self();
    }
    return self::$_instance;
}

This code can apply for any class without caring about its class name.

Answer 3

This article covers topic quite extensively: http://www.phptherightway.com/pages/Design-Patterns.html#singleton

Note the following:

• The constructor __construct() is declared as protected to prevent creating a new instance outside of the class via the new operator.
• The magic method __clone() is declared as private to prevent cloning of an instance of the class via the clone operator.
• The magic method __wakeup() is declared as private to prevent unserializing of an instance of the class via the global function unserialize().
• A new instance is created via late static binding in the static creation method getInstance() with the keyword static. This allows the subclassing of the class Singleton in the example.

Answer 4

You probably should add a private __clone() method to disallow cloning of an instance.

private function __clone() {}

If you don't include this method the following gets possible

$inst1=UserFactory::Instance(); // to stick with the example provided above
$inst2=clone $inst1;

now $inst1 !== $inst2 - they are not the same instance any more.

Answer 5

All this complexity ("late static binding" ... harumph) is, to me, simply a sign of PHP's broken object/class model. If class objects were first-class objects (see Python), then "$_instance" would be a class instance variable -- a member of the class object, as opposed to a member/property of its instances, and also as opposed to shared by its descendants. In the Smalltalk world, this is the difference between a "class variable" and a "class instance variable".

In PHP, it looks to me as though we need to take to heart the guidance that patterns are a guide towards writing code -- we might perhaps think about a Singleton template, but trying to write code that inherits from an actual "Singleton" class looks misguided for PHP (though I supposed some enterprising soul could create a suitable SVN keyword).

I will continue to just code each singleton separately, using a shared template.

Notice that I'm absolutely staying OUT of the singletons-are-evil discussion, life is too short.

Answer 6

I liked @jose-segura method of using traits but didn't like the need to define a static variable on sub-classes. Below is a solution that avoids it by caching the instances in a static local variable to the factory method indexed by class name:

<?php
trait Singleton {

  # Single point of entry for creating a new instance. For a given
  # class always returns the same instance.
  public static function instance(){
    static $instances = array();
    $class = get_called_class();
    if( !isset($instances[$class]) ) $instances[$class] = new $class();
    return $instances[$class];
  }

  # Kill traditional methods of creating new instances
  protected function __clone() {}
  protected function __construct() {}
}

Usage is the same as @jose-segura only no need for the static variable in sub-classes.