Review: creating a database-driven persistent class - PHPIf you’re a PHP developer who wants to learn how to create objects that can maintain their state through different HTTP requests, either by using cookies, plain text files or MySQL database tables, then don’t look any further because you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to the last part of a six-part series on building persistent objects in PHP 5. This tutorial series introduces the key concepts that surround the creation of persistent objects, and complements the corresponding theory with copious code samples.
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To understand how the pair of sample classes mentioned in the introduction can be put to work in tandem to create a persistent object whose properties will be saved to a MySQL table, it'd be useful to recall how these classes were initially defined in the preceding tutorial. Here's the source code that corresponds to the MySQL abstraction class. It's responsible for performing queries against a selected database. Take a look at its short definition: class MySQL { private $result = NULL; private $link = NULL;
// connect to MySQL public function __construct($host, $user, $password, $database) { if (FALSE === ($this->link = mysqli_connect($host, $user, $password, $database))) { throw new Exception('Error : ' . mysqli_connect_error()); } }
// perform query public function query($query) { if (is_string($query) AND !empty($query)) { if (FALSE === ($this->result = mysqli_query($this->link, $query))) { throw new Exception('Error performing query ' . $query . ' Error message :' .mysqli_error($this->link)); } } }
// fetch row from result set public function fetch() { if (FALSE === ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($this->result))) { mysqli_free_result($this->result); return FALSE; } return $row; }
// get insertion ID public function getInsertID() { return mysqli_insert_id($this->link); } // count rows in result set public function countRows() { if ($this->result !== NULL) { return mysqli_num_rows($this->result); } } // implement destructor to close the database connection function __destruct() { mysqli_close($this->link); } } Since in the previous installment I covered in detail how the above "MySQL" class works, I'm not going to bore you with redundant explanations of the way that each of its methods have been implemented. The only thing worth noting here is that the class packages enough functionality for connecting to MySQL and running queries, counting the number of rows in a result set, and so forth. Now it's time to show the definition of the persistent class, which I called "User," since it stores user-related data on a specified MySQL table. The complete signature of this sample class is as follows: class User { private $data = array(); private $id = 1; private $db = NULL;
// constructor public function __construct(MySQL $db, $id = NULL) { $this->db = $db; if ($id !== NULL) { $this->id = $id; } $this->db->query('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id=' . $this->id); $this->data = $this->db->fetch(); }
// set undeclared property public function __set($property, $value) { if ($property !== 'name' and $property !== 'email') { return; } $this->data[$property] = $value; }
// get undeclared property public function __get($property) { if (isset($this->data[$property]) === TRUE) { return $this->data[$property]; } }
// save class properties to MySQL table public function __destruct() { $this->db->query("UPDATE users SET name = '$this->name', email = '$this->email' WHERE id = $this->id"); } } Even though the definition of the previous "User" class looks pretty skinny and compact, it performs a few interesting tasks that are worth a closer look. As you can see, aside from implementing the "__set()" and "__get()" PHP 5 magic methods, which permit it to handle undeclared properties on the fly, the class also uses its constructor to retrieve those properties from a fictional "users" MySQL table. Next, these properties are stored in the internal $data array, which lets the destructor save them again to the "users" table, right before the PHP interpreter finishes executing the calling script. The question that comes up at this point is: do you have a vague idea of how to create a persistent object with the two classes shown earlier? I'm sure you do! Nonetheless, to dissipate any doubts that you may have on this subject, in the course of the following section I'm going to create a brand new example that will put these classes together so you can see them in action. To learn how this particular example will be developed, please click on the link that appears below and keep reading.
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