Creating the Singleton design pattern in PHP5

Question

How would one create a Singleton class using PHP5 classes?

Answer 1

Supports Multiple Objects with 1 line per class:

This method will enforce singletons on any class you wish, al you have to do is add 1 method to the class you wish to make a singleton and this will do it for you.

This also stores objects in a "SingleTonBase" class so you can debug all your objects that you have used in your system by recursing the SingleTonBase objects.

---

Create a file called SingletonBase.php and include it in root of your script!

The code is

abstract class SingletonBase
{
    private static $storage = array();

    public static function Singleton($class)
    {
        if(in_array($class,self::$storage))
        {
            return self::$storage[$class];
        }
        return self::$storage[$class] = new $class();
    }
    public static function storage()
    {
       return self::$storage;
    }
}

Then for any class you want to make a singleton just add this small single method.

public static function Singleton()
{
    return SingletonBase::Singleton(get_class());
}

---

Here is a small example:

include 'libraries/SingletonBase.resource.php';

class Database
{
    //Add that singleton function.
    public static function Singleton()
    {
        return SingletonBase::Singleton(get_class());
    }

    public function run()
    {
        echo 'running...';
    }
}

$Database = Database::Singleton();

$Database->run();

And you can just add this singleton function in any class you have and it will only create 1 instance per class.

NOTE: You should always make the __construct private to eliminate the use of new Class(); instantiations.

Answer 2

PHP 5.3 allows the creation of an inheritable Singleton class via late static binding:

class Singleton
{
    protected static $instance = null;

    protected function __construct()
    {
        //Thou shalt not construct that which is unconstructable!
    }

    protected function __clone()
    {
        //Me not like clones! Me smash clones!
    }

    public static function getInstance()
    {
        if (!isset(static::$instance)) {
            static::$instance = new static;
        }
        return static::$instance;
    }
}

This solves the problem, that prior to PHP 5.3 any class that extended a Singleton would produce an instance of its parent class instead of its own.

Now you can do:

class Foobar extends Singleton {};
$foo = Foobar::getInstance();

And $foo will be an instance of Foobar instead of an instance of Singleton.

Answer 3

/**
 * Singleton class
 *
 */
final class UserFactory
{
    /**
     * Call this method to get singleton
     *
     * @return UserFactory
     */
    public static function Instance()
    {
        static $inst = null;
        if ($inst === null) {
            $inst = new UserFactory();
        }
        return $inst;
    }

    /**
     * Private ctor so nobody else can instantiate it
     *
     */
    private function __construct()
    {

    }
}

To use:

$fact = UserFactory::Instance();
$fact2 = UserFactory::Instance();

$fact == $fact2;

But:

$fact = new UserFactory()

Throws an error.

See http://php.net/manual/en/language.variables.scope.php#language.variables.scope.static to understand static variable scopes and why setting static $inst = null; works.

Answer 4

Unfortunately Inwdr's answer breaks when there are multiple subclasses.

Here is a correct inheritable Singleton base class.

class Singleton
{
    private static $instances = array();
    protected function __construct() {}
    protected function __clone() {}
    public function __wakeup()
    {
        throw new Exception("Cannot unserialize singleton");
    }

    public static function getInstance()
    {
        $cls = get_called_class(); // late-static-bound class name
        if (!isset(self::$instances[$cls])) {
            self::$instances[$cls] = new static;
        }
        return self::$instances[$cls];
    }
}

Test code:

class Foo extends Singleton {}
class Bar extends Singleton {}

echo get_class(Foo::getInstance()) . "\n";
echo get_class(Bar::getInstance()) . "\n";

Answer 5

You don't really need to use Singleton pattern because it's considered to be an antipattern. Basically there is a lot of reasons to not to implement this pattern at all. Read this to start with: Best practice on PHP singleton classes.

If after all you still think you need to use Singleton pattern then we could write a class that will allow us to get Singleton functionality by extending our SingletonClassVendor abstract class.

This is what I came with to solve this problem.

<?php
namespace wl;


/**
 * @author DevWL
 * @dosc allows only one instance for each extending class.
 * it acts a litle bit as registry from the SingletonClassVendor abstract class point of view
 * but it provides a valid singleton behaviour for its children classes
 * Be aware, the singleton pattern is consider to be an anti-pattern
 * mostly because it can be hard to debug and it comes with some limitations.
 * In most cases you do not need to use singleton pattern
 * so take a longer moment to think about it before you use it.
 */
abstract class SingletonClassVendor
{
    /**
     *  holds an single instance of the child class
     *
     *  @var array of objects
     */
    protected static $instance = [];

    /**
     *  @desc provides a single slot to hold an instance interchanble between all child classes.
     *  @return object
     */
    public static final function getInstance(){
        $class = get_called_class(); // or get_class(new static());
        if(!isset(self::$instance[$class]) || !self::$instance[$class] instanceof $class){
            self::$instance[$class] = new static(); // create and instance of child class which extends Singleton super class
            echo "new ". $class . PHP_EOL; // remove this line after testing
            return  self::$instance[$class]; // remove this line after testing
        }
        echo "old ". $class . PHP_EOL; // remove this line after testing
        return static::$instance[$class];
    }

    /**
     * Make constructor abstract to force protected implementation of the __constructor() method, so that nobody can call directly "new Class()".
     */
    abstract protected 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() {}

}

Use example:

/**
 * EXAMPLE
 */

/**
 *  @example 1 - Database class by extending SingletonClassVendor abstract class becomes fully functional singleton
 *  __constructor must be set to protected becaouse: 
 *   1 to allow instansiation from parent class 
 *   2 to prevent direct instanciation of object with "new" keword.
 *   3 to meet requierments of SingletonClassVendor abstract class
 */
class Database extends SingletonClassVendor
{
    public $type = "SomeClass";
    protected function __construct(){
        echo "DDDDDDDDD". PHP_EOL; // remove this line after testing
    }
}


/**
 *  @example 2 - Config ...
 */
class Config extends SingletonClassVendor
{
    public $name = "Config";
    protected function __construct(){
        echo "CCCCCCCCCC" . PHP_EOL; // remove this line after testing
    }
}

Just to prove that it works as expected:

/**
 *  TESTING
 */
$bd1 = Database::getInstance(); // new
$bd2 = Database::getInstance(); // old
$bd3 = Config::getInstance(); // new
$bd4 = Config::getInstance(); // old
$bd5 = Config::getInstance(); // old
$bd6 = Database::getInstance(); // old
$bd7 = Database::getInstance(); // old
$bd8 = Config::getInstance(); // old

echo PHP_EOL."COMPARE ALL DATABASE INSTANCES".PHP_EOL;
var_dump($bd1);
echo '$bd1 === $bd2' . ($bd1 === $bd2)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE
echo '$bd2 === $bd6' . ($bd2 === $bd6)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE
echo '$bd6 === $bd7' . ($bd6 === $bd7)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE

echo PHP_EOL;

echo PHP_EOL."COMPARE ALL CONFIG INSTANCES". PHP_EOL;
var_dump($bd3);
echo '$bd3 === $bd4' . ($bd3 === $bd4)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE
echo '$bd4 === $bd5' . ($bd4 === $bd5)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE
echo '$bd5 === $bd8' . ($bd5 === $bd8)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE

Answer 6

Database class that checks if there is any existing database instance it will return previous instance.

   class Database {  
        public static $instance;  
         public static function getInstance(){  
            if(!isset(Database::$instance) ) {  
                Database::$instance = new Database();  
            }  
           return Database::$instance;  
         }  
         private function __cunstruct() {  
           /* private and cant create multiple objects */  
         }  
         public function getQuery(){  
            return "Test Query Data";  
         }  
    }  
    $dbObj = Database::getInstance();  
    $dbObj2 = Database::getInstance();  
    var_dump($dbObj);  
    var_dump($dbObj2);  


/* 
After execution you will get following output: 

object(Database)[1] 
object(Database)[1] 

*/  

Ref http://www.phptechi.com/php-singleton-design-patterns-example.html