php_data_object

"Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around." (c) Eric S. Raymond

"Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships." (c) Linus Torvalds

Overview

This is yet another PHP implementation of the data container (like DTO / SDO). Some kind of the wrapper around associative array. The main goal of this implementation is to be an accessor for the raw data.

Native PHP objects

Structure

We can use any property of any PHP object:

$obj1 = new class {};
$obj2 = new class {};
$obj1->name = 'first';
$obj2->code = 'OBJ2';
$obj1->sub = $obj2;
$this->assertEquals('first', $obj1->name);
$this->assertEquals('OBJ2', $obj1->sub->code);

More...

Paths

We can set/get value of the inner property in PHP style:

$obj->sub->code = $code;
$code = $obj->sub->code;

but we will have "Undefined property" error if $obj->sub property does not exist.

Type checking

We need to use accessors to control properties types.

This is Customer class with string property:

/**
 * @property string $name Customer name.
 */
class Customer
{
    public function getName() : string
    {
        return $this->name;
    }

    public function setName(string $data)
    {
        $this->name = $data;
    }
}

This is Order class with Customer property:

/**
 * @property Customer $customer
 */
class Order
{
    public function getCustomer() : Customer
    {
        return $this->customer;
    }

    public function setCustomer(Customer $data)
    {
        $this->customer = $data;
    }
}

This is code without errors (all types are expected):

$customer = new Customer();
$customer->setName('John Dow');
$order = new Order();
$order->setCustomer($customer);
$this->assertTrue(is_string($order->getCustomer()->getName()));

This code will throw a \TypeError exception:

$customer = new class {};
$customer->name = 'John Dow';
$order = new Order();
$order->setCustomer($customer);

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Data Objects

Structure

Paths

With paths we will have property value if chain of properties exists or null otherwise:

$code = $obj->get('sub/code');
$code = $obj->get('/sub/code');    // equals to 'sub/code'
$code = $obj->get('/subs/0/code'); // 'subs' is array
$code = $obj->get('/sub/code/does/not/exist'); // 'null' is returned, no error is occured

Also we can set data property by path:

$obj->set('order/customer/name', 'John Dow');

Type hinting

Installation

Add to composer.json:

"require": {
    "flancer32/php_data_object": "0.1.0"
}

Development

$ composer install
$ ./vendor/bin/phpunit -c ./test/unit/phpunit.dist.xml