Creating self-saving objects - PHP

As you learned in the previous section, creating objects that serialize themselves is a fairly comprehensive process, since all you have to do is add to the corresponding class a method capable of saving the serialized object to a specified file, or in many cases, to a database table.

However, self-serializing objects are only provided with the ability to save themselves to a file, or whatever storage media you want to use. So, what if I tell you that it’s possible to create objects that not only serialize and save to a file themselves, but also are capable of performing a self-restoring process?

Actually, this kind of object is called a “self-saving” object, and the class defined below demonstrates how to create it. Take a look at its source code:

class ObjectSaver{
    var $objectFile;
    function ObjectSaver($objectFile='defaultDir/objects.txt'){
        $this->objectFile=$objectFile;
        $this->save();
    }
    // save serialized object to file
    function save(){
        if(!$fp=fopen($this->objectFile,'w')){
            trigger_error('Error opening object
file',E_USER_ERROR);
        }
        if(!fwrite($fp,serialize($this))){
            trigger_error('Error writing data to object
file',E_USER_ERROR);
        }
        fclose($fp);
    }
    // fetch object from file
    function fetch(){
        if(!$obj=unserialize(file_get_contents($this-
>objectFile))){
            trigger_error('Error fetching object from
file',E_USER_ERROR);
        }
        return $obj;
    }
}

As you can see, the sample “ObjectSaver” class that I coded above shows a typical example of how to create an object that is capable of serializing and deserializing itself. In this case, whenever the object is instantiated, it will be serialized and saved to a text file, while in order to perform the reverse process, the “fetch()” method must be explicitly called.

To complement the concept of creating self-saving objects, the above class uses a simple text file both for storing the serialized object and restoring it back to its original state. Nevertheless, as I said before, you can use a database table for storing serialized objects, or even cookies, in case your application doesn’t demand huge storage requirements.

Now that you learned how to create self-saving objects based on the “ObjectSaver” class that I defined previously, take a look at the following example, which demonstrates how to use these objects:

// instantiate 'objectsaver' object
$objSaver=&new ObjectSaver();
// fetch unserialized object
$newObj=$objSaver->fetch();

As illustrated above, after a new “ObjectSaver” object has been instantiated, its “fetch()” method is called explicitly, in order to unserialize the object and store it in the “$newObj” variable.

After studying the previous example, perhaps you’re wondering…what’s the point of restoring the object to its original state, when it was already available at the time of being instantiated? Well, in fact this makes a lot of sense if you take into account that the respective “fetch()” method might be modified, let’s say for returning not the entire object, but only one specific property (or a set of properties), which should persist across different web pages. Doing so, you’ll be heading directly toward the concept of a “persistent” object, by the way a topic that I’ll cover in the second tutorial.

For now, be patient and have some fun experimenting with the previous “ObjectSaver” class, which can be slightly modified to display a trivial message, when the “fetch()” method is called appropriately.

Considering this small change, the modified version of the “ObjectSaver” class would look like this:

class ObjectSaver{
    var $objectFile;
    function ObjectSaver($objectFile='defaultDir/objects.txt'){
        $this->objectFile=$objectFile;
        $this->save();
    }
    // save serialized object to file
    function save(){
        if(!$fp=fopen($this->objectFile,'w')){
            trigger_error('Error opening object file',E_USER_ERROR);
        }
        if(!fwrite($fp,serialize($this))){
            trigger_error('Error writing data to object
file',E_USER_ERROR);
        }
        fclose($fp);
    }
    // fetch object from file
    function fetch(){
        if(!$obj=unserialize(file_get_contents($this-
>objectFile))){
            trigger_error('Error fetching object from
file',E_USER_ERROR);
        }
        return $obj;
    }
    // display message
    function displayMessage(){
        return 'This is an object that saves and retrieves itself
via its methods!';
    }
}

And eventually, an “ObjectSaver” object could be used as follows:

$objSaver=&new ObjectSaver();
$newObj=$objSaver->fetch();
echo $newObj->displayMessage();

In accordance with the above snippet, its output would be as follows:

This is an object that saves and retrieves itself via its
methods!

As you can see, the object in question unserializes itself and displays the corresponding sample message, which demonstrates that the “fetch()” method restores the object to its original state after being saved to the specified file by the “save()” method. Isn’t object serialization a fairly comprehensive process?

To wrap up

In this first part of the series, hopefully you learned the basics of object serialization in PHP, including some interesting concepts, like creating objects that are capable of saving and retrieving themselves through their own methods.

Over the course of the second article, I’ll explain how to create persisting objects, in addition to implementing the magic “__sleep()” and “__wakeup()” functions. As usual, see you in the next part!