PHP Classes

TonTon PHP Singleton Trait New Generation: Create class objects in a limited number of times

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tonton 1.2.0BSD License7PHP 5, Language, Design Patterns
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This package allows to create class objects in a limited number of times.

It provides several trait that can be used with any classes to implement singletons or multitons to limit the number of times that an object of the same class can be created.

Currently it provides traits that can:

- Allow to create a class object only once
- Allow to create class objects a limited number of times up to a given limit number using a key value to distinguish each kind of class object
- Cache the values of the class variables in MemCached based storage
- Allow to create a single class object, only if constraints are met

Innovation Award
PHP Programming Innovation award nominee
March 2021
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Singleton is a well known design pattern that is used by many classes to assure that only one instance of the class objects exist during the time that a script is executed.

Multiton is a variant of the singleton design pattern that allows more than one instance of a class to exist up to a given limit.

This package provides a solution to implement singleton or multiton classes that can have its variable values be saved to a MemCached container, so the objects can be loaded with the same class values in other times that a script is run after the original script that has set the class variable has ended.

Manuel Lemos
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Documentation

TonTon PHP

PHP Composer CI

Singleton patterns are amongst the most used structures in PHP. Together with that, some similar constructions, such as the Multiton, appear in almost every new PHP project. However, singletons could be much more. Initially, they don't really need to be inserted in any class, several times. Some people use abstracts, but does it make sense, extending a class which is just a support, by definition?

Also, some patterns could be deriving from the Singleton, beyond the Multiton, so that is what we are proposing here:

  • First, use Singletons and similar as traits, to avoid duplicates and repetition while coding
  • Second, create new and different subpatterns that can elevate the initial purpose of a Singleton to something even more useful

Installation

TonTon is available as PHP library, being installed through Composer.

Usage

Well, for the first two traits, "using" them is pretty much what you need to do. As traits, once they are required with Composer, they can easily be added to any class through the use keyword inside the class. The usage is quite simple - let's consider a class named EasyPeasy:


require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

class EasyPeasy {

	use \TonTon\Singleton;

	protected function construct() {

		echo 'Easy Peasy!';
	}
}

/* So, if we want to instantiate this class, then we need to use a
   static method. Any new attempts of instantiating the class will
   result in nothing (if we try to use the static method again) or 
   a fatal error, if we try to create an instance through the "new"
   keyword.*/

$ep = EasyPeasy::instance(); // Valid instance
$rt = EasyPeasy::instance(); // Nothing happens, as an instance already exists

$er = new EasyPeasy(); // Fatal error


But the Singleton here is just the tip of the iceberg. If you want, by any reason, to have multiple instances of your class, but all of them need to be flagged (let's say one for dealing with queries, and other for logging processes), you'd prefer to use a Multiton instead. The approach will be basically the same:


require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

class EasyPeasy {

	use \TonTon\Multiton;

	protected function construct() {

		echo 'Easy Peasy!';
	}
}

/* So, if we want to instantiate this class, then we need to use a
   static method. Any new attempts of instantiating the class will
   work if using the static method instance(), with a $key as argument
   or a fatal error, if we try to create an instance through the "new"
   keyword.*/

$ep = EasyPeasy::instance('normal'); // Instance 1
$rt = EasyPeasy::instance('log'); // Instance 2

$er = new EasyPeasy(); // Fatal error


But let's say, besides using many instances of that class, you want the number of instances to be limit, and you'd like to set this limit while creating your class. That can now be done using the Limiton:


require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

class EasyPeasy {

	use \TonTon\Limiton;

	protected function construct() {

		$this->setLimit(1); // Limit set to 1, so it works like a Singleton,
							// but needs a $key for the new instance. Default
							// value is 2.
		echo 'Easy Peasy!';
	}
}

/* So, if we want to instantiate this class, then we need to use a
   static method. Any new attempts of instantiating the class will
   work if using the static method instance(), with a $key as argument
   or a fatal error, if we try to create an instance through the "new"
   keyword. However, in the Limiton, the number of instances is limited
   by the method setLimit(int).*/

$ep = EasyPeasy::instance('normal'); // Instance 1
$rt = EasyPeasy::instance('log'); // Nothing happens, as we limited the max number
								  // of instances in 1 for this class.

$er = new EasyPeasy(); // Fatal error


Another useful "ton". Let's say we want to work with different instances of a class. For some of them, we want the object to be cached, but not for others. Also, the expiring time is to be different from instance to instance. Now we can solve this problem with Cacheton. For the moment, this script require Memcached class - which means php-memcached extensions must be installed.


require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

class EasyPeasy {

	use \TonTon\Cacheton;

	protected function construct() {

		echo 'Easy Peasy!';
	}
}

/* The Cacheton works like a Multiton. Each new instance receives a tag.
   If no time in seconds is passed, the trait assumes you want the instance
   to be cached for one hour. However, this time can be set as a second
   argument while calling the static method.*/

$ep = EasyPeasy::instance('normal'); // Instantiate the class and sets a cache for 3600 seconds.
$rt = EasyPeasy::instance('timed', 60); // Instantiate the class and sets a cache for 60 seconds

$er = new EasyPeasy(); // Fatal error


Ok, now let's try something more interesting. It's not rare at all to see situations in which devs use Singletons in tandem with some constraints checkings, in the same class. Starting with the obvious, what if we came up with a Singleton that JUST creates a single instance if requirements are met?

That's exactly what we can do with the Selecton:

require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

class EasyPeasy {

	use \TonTon\Selecton;

	private function __construct() {

		echo 'Easy Peasy!';
	}

}

$constraints = [
	'extensions' => [ // Extension names
		'curl',
		'mbstring'
	],
	'classes' => [ // Class names (with namespaces, if existent)
		'Directory',
		'IteratorIterator'
	]
];

$rt = EasyPeasy::instance($constraints); // If any of the constraints is not met, throws an exception

$er = new EasyPeasy(); // Fatal error


  Files folder image Files (10)  
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Files folder image.github (1 directory)
Files folder imagesrc (5 files)
Accessible without login Plain text file composer.json Data Auxiliary data
Accessible without login Plain text file composer.lock Data Auxiliary data
Accessible without login Plain text file README.md Doc. Documentation

  Files folder image Files (10)  /  .github  
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Files folder imageworkflows (2 files)

  Files folder image Files (10)  /  .github  /  workflows  
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  Accessible without login Plain text file main.yml Data Auxiliary data
  Accessible without login Plain text file php.yml Data Auxiliary data

  Files folder image Files (10)  /  src  
File Role Description
  Plain text file Cacheton.php Class Class source
  Plain text file Limiton.php Class Class source
  Plain text file Multiton.php Class Class source
  Plain text file Selecton.php Class Class source
  Plain text file Singleton.php Class Class source

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