Creating the Singleton design pattern in PHP5

Question

How would one create a Singleton class using PHP5 classes?

Answer 1

<?php
/**
 * Singleton patter in php
 **/
trait SingletonTrait {
   protected static $inst = null;

  /**
   * call this method to get instance
   **/
   public static function getInstance(){
      if (static::$inst === null){
         static::$inst = new static();
      }
      return static::$inst;
  }

  /**
   * protected to prevent clonning 
   **/
  protected function __clone(){
  }

  /**
   * protected so no one else can instance it 
   **/
  protected function __construct(){
  }
}

to use:

/**
 *  example of class definitions using SingletonTrait
 */
class DBFactory {
  /**
   * we are adding the trait here 
   **/
   use SingletonTrait;

  /**
   * This class will have a single db connection as an example
   **/
  protected $db;


 /**
  * as an example we will create a PDO connection
  **/
  protected function __construct(){
    $this->db = 
        new PDO('mysql:dbname=foodb;port=3305;host=127.0.0.1','foouser','foopass');
  }
}
class DBFactoryChild extends DBFactory {
  /**
   * we repeating the inst so that it will differentiate it
   * from UserFactory singleton
   **/
   protected static $inst = null;
}


/**
 * example of instanciating the classes
 */
$uf0 = DBFactoryChild::getInstance();
var_dump($uf0);
$uf1 = DBFactory::getInstance();
var_dump($uf1);
echo $uf0 === $uf1;

respose:

object(DBFactoryChild)#1 (0) {
}
object(DBFactory)#2 (0) {
}

If you are using PHP 5.4: trait its an option, so you don't have to waste the inheritance hierarchy in order to have the Singleton pattern

and also notice that whether you use traits or extends Singleton class one loose end was to create singleton of child classes if you dont add the following line of code:

   protected static $inst = null;

in the child class

the unexpected result will be:

object(DBFactoryChild)#1 (0) {
}
object(DBFactoryChild)#1 (0) {
}

Answer 2

I agree with the first answer but I would also declare the class as final so that it cannot be extended as extending a singleton violates the singleton pattern. Also the instance variable should be private so that it cannot be accessed directly. Also make the __clone method private so that you cannot clone the singleton object.

Below is some example code.

/**
 * Singleton class
 *
 */
final class UserFactory
{
    private static $_instance = null;

    /**
     * Private constructor
     *
     */
    private function __construct() {}

    /**
     * Private clone method
     *
     */
     private function __clone() {}

    /**
     * Call this method to get singleton
     *
     * @return UserFactory
     */
    public static function getInstance()
    {
        if (self::$_instance === null) {
            self::$_instance = new UserFactory();
        }
        return self::$_instance;
    }
}

Example Usage

$user_factory = UserFactory::getInstance();

What this stops you from doing (which would violate the singleton pattern..

YOU CANNOT DO THIS!

$user_factory = UserFactory::$_instance;

class SecondUserFactory extends UserFactory { }

Answer 3

I know this is probably going to cause an unnecessary flame war, but I can see how you might want more than one database connection, so I would concede the point that singleton might not be the best solution for that... however, there are other uses of the singleton pattern that I find extremely useful.

Here's an example: I decided to roll my own MVC and templating engine because I wanted something really lightweight. However, the data that I want to display contains a lot of special math characters such as ≥ and μ and what have you... The data is stored as the actual UTF-8 character in my database rather than pre-HTML-encoded because my app can deliver other formats such as PDF and CSV in addition to HTML. The appropriate place to format for HTML is inside the template ("view" if you will) that is responsible for rendering that page section (snippet). I want to convert them to their appropriate HTML entities, but PHPs get_html_translation_table() function is not super fast. It makes better sense to retrieve the data one time and store as an array, making it available for all to use. Here's a sample I knocked together to test the speed. Presumably, this would work regardless of whether the other methods you use (after getting the instance) were static or not.

class EncodeHTMLEntities {

    private static $instance = null;//stores the instance of self
    private $r = null;//array of chars elligalbe for replacement

    private function __clone(){
    }//disable cloning, no reason to clone

    private function __construct()
    {
        $allEntities = get_html_translation_table(HTML_ENTITIES, ENT_NOQUOTES);
        $specialEntities = get_html_translation_table(HTML_SPECIALCHARS, ENT_NOQUOTES);
        $this->r = array_diff($allEntities, $specialEntities);
    }

    public static function replace($string)
    {
        if(!(self::$instance instanceof self) ){
            self::$instance = new self();
        }
        return strtr($string, self::$instance->r);
    }
}
//test one million encodings of a string
$start = microtime(true);
for($x=0; $x<1000000; $x++){
    $dump = EncodeHTMLEntities::replace("Reference method for diagnosis of CDAD, but clinical usefulness limited due to extended turnaround time (≥96 hrs)");
}
$end = microtime(true);
echo "Run time: ".($end-$start)." seconds using singleton\n";
//now repeat the same without using singleton
$start = microtime(true);
for($x=0; $x<1000000; $x++){
    $allEntities = get_html_translation_table(HTML_ENTITIES, ENT_NOQUOTES);
    $specialEntities = get_html_translation_table(HTML_SPECIALCHARS, ENT_NOQUOTES);
    $r = array_diff($allEntities, $specialEntities);
    $dump = strtr("Reference method for diagnosis of CDAD, but clinical usefulness limited due to extended turnaround time (≥96 hrs)", $r);
}
$end = microtime(true);
echo "Run time: ".($end-$start)." seconds without using singleton";

Basically, I saw typical results like this:

php test.php
Run time: 27.842966794968 seconds using singleton
Run time: 237.78191494942 seconds without using singleton

So while I'm certainly no expert, I don't see a more convenient and reliable way to reduce the overhead of slow calls for some kind of data, while making it super simple (single line of code to do what you need). Granted my example only has one useful method, and therefore is no better than a globally defined function, but as soon as you have two methods, you're going to want to group them together, right? Am I way off base?

Also, I prefer examples that actually DO something, since sometimes it's hard to visualise when an example includes statements like "//do something useful here" which I see all the time when searching for tutorials.

Anyway, I'd love any feedback or comments on why using a singleton for this type of thing is detrimental (or overly complicated).

Answer 4

This should be the right way of Singleton.

class Singleton {

    private static $instance;
    private $count = 0;

    protected function __construct(){

    }

    public static function singleton(){

        if (!isset(self::$instance)) {

            self::$instance = new Singleton;

        }

        return self::$instance;

    }

    public function increment()
    {
        return $this->count++;
    }

    protected function __clone(){

    }

    protected function __wakeup(){

    }

} 

Answer 5

The Real One and Modern way to make Singleton Pattern is:

<?php

/**
 * Singleton Pattern.
 * 
 * Modern implementation.
 */
class Singleton
{
    /**
     * Call this method to get singleton
     */
    public static function instance()
    {
      static $instance = false;
      if( $instance === false )
      {
        // Late static binding (PHP 5.3+)
        $instance = new static();
      }

      return $instance;
    }

    /**
     * Make constructor private, so nobody can call "new Class".
     */
    private function __construct() {}

    /**
     * Make clone magic method private, so nobody can clone instance.
     */
    private function __clone() {}

    /**
     * Make sleep magic method private, so nobody can serialize instance.
     */
    private function __sleep() {}

    /**
     * Make wakeup magic method private, so nobody can unserialize instance.
     */
    private function __wakeup() {}

}

So now you can use it like.

<?php

/**
 * Database.
 *
 * Inherited from Singleton, so it's now got singleton behavior.
 */
class Database extends Singleton {

  protected $label;

  /**
   * Example of that singleton is working correctly.
   */
  public function setLabel($label)
  {
    $this->label = $label;
  }

  public function getLabel()
  {
    return $this->label;
  }

}

// create first instance
$database = Database::instance();
$database->setLabel('Abraham');
echo $database->getLabel() . PHP_EOL;

// now try to create other instance as well
$other_db = Database::instance();
echo $other_db->getLabel() . PHP_EOL; // Abraham

$other_db->setLabel('Priler');
echo $database->getLabel() . PHP_EOL; // Priler
echo $other_db->getLabel() . PHP_EOL; // Priler

As you see this realization is lot more flexible.

Answer 6

I have written long back thought to share here

class SingletonDesignPattern {

    //just for demo there will be only one instance
    private static $instanceCount =0;

    //create the private instance variable
    private static $myInstance=null;

    //make constructor private so no one create object using new Keyword
    private function  __construct(){}

    //no one clone the object
    private function  __clone(){}

    //avoid serialazation
    public function __wakeup(){}

    //ony one way to create  object
    public static  function  getInstance(){

        if(self::$myInstance==null){
            self::$myInstance=new SingletonDesignPattern();
            self::$instanceCount++;
        }
        return self::$myInstance;
    }

    public static function getInstanceCount(){
        return self::$instanceCount;
    }

}

//now lets play with singleton design pattern

$instance = SingletonDesignPattern::getInstance();
$instance = SingletonDesignPattern::getInstance();
$instance = SingletonDesignPattern::getInstance();
$instance = SingletonDesignPattern::getInstance();

echo "number of instances: ".SingletonDesignPattern::getInstanceCount();