Multi-Class Best Practices?

Wynder

So, I'm mulling around in my head an idea for an object oriented framework and I wanted to solicit some feedback on what the best practice might be in implementing it.

I want to create a single class that I'll reference as the "master" class.

$CORE = new Core();

But, I also want to reference several other classes that are designed to perform specific functions like user information lookup, custom form validation and data handling and datastore connection management. Would the best implementation of that be something like:

class Core
{
        var $User;
        var $Oracle;
        var $LDAP;

    function __construct()
    {
             $this->User = new User();
             $this->Oracle = new Oracle();
             $this->LDAP = new LDAP();
     }
}

So, in the long run, I could do something like:

$CORE->LDAP->connect();

$CORE->LDAP->isUser($username);

Is there a better way to handle implementing a library of classes like this?

NogDog

My first thought is that if Core is the "master" class, then it should probably be doing most/all of those method calls internally within one or more of its own methods, probably fired off from its __construct() method; so you would be calling $this->LDAP->connect() from within the applicable method.

Also, you might find it useful to pass the object dependencies via the constructor (a.k.a. dependency injection) to facilitate looser coupling.

Wynder

Thanks, NogDog!

I appreciate the feedback... would you mind expanding a bit more upon the "dependency injection?" I think I have an idea of what you mean, but I just want to make sure I understand completely.

NogDog;11004749 wrote:
My first thought is that if Core is the "master" class, then it should probably be doing most/all of those method calls internally within one or more of its own methods, probably fired off from its __construct() method; so you would be calling $this->LDAP->connect() from within the applicable method.

Also, you might find it useful to pass the object dependencies via the constructor (a.k.a. dependency injection) to facilitate looser coupling.

Wynder

bradgrafelman;11004752 wrote:
If no such calls are made, however, the core doesn't waste time/resources creating objects and perhaps connections/streams that aren't going to be used for a given page.

Outstanding idea. It's in. 🙂

NogDog

Long story short: Dependency Injection means that you explicitly "inject" one object into another, rather than the second object invoking it internally. The idea is that this allows you to change which exact type of object gets used (maybe one of several concrete classes based on one abstract class?), and can also make it easier to test (e.g. by injecting a stubbed test object when the "real" object is not yet developed).