informing interface methods are implemented via __call?

Question

I have an interface that declares the implementation needs methods such as find, findOrFail etc, basically Laravel eloquent methods.

I declare these methods in the interface because not everything that implements the interface will extend eloquent so I declare them in the interface so my app always knows the methods are going to be there.

What I want to know is, other than having a bunch of public function find($id){return parent::find($id)} type methods in the models that do extend the eloquent model is there an easy way to let the interface know that the method is handled via __call?

See also: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=41162. – J.D. Oct 12 '16 at 20:06 — J.D., Oct 12 '16 at 20:06

score 10 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 22 '20 at 00:55

10

Although there may be a larger question as to the cleanliness of such a design, you can accomplish something akin to this by using a trait which implements the methods of the interface:

interface FindableContract {
    public function find($id);
}

trait MagicFindableTrait {
    public function find($id) {
        return static::__call(__FUNCTION__, func_get_args()); 
    }
}

class MagicalParent {
    public function __call($method, $args) {
        if ($method == 'find') {
            return "User " . $args[0] . " is a witch! May we burn her?!";
        }
    }
}

class User extends MagicalParent implements FindableContract {
    use MagicFindableTrait;
}

class NonmagicalUser implements FindableContract {
    public function find($id) {
        return "User $id was found to be non-magical.  Let's burn him anyway.";
    }
}

print (new User)->find(123);
print (new NonmagicalUser)->find(321);

edited Dec 22 '20 at 00:55

patstuart

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answered Feb 08 '15 at 21:55

Gabriel

570
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2

In the end I decided to upvote, because I think it is really clever. I hesitated for a while because I think it is really clever. – Dennis Haarbrink Oct 06 '16 at 06:29
1

I agree Dennis, this is generally speaking a very bad idea. The primary use for something like this is academic/curiosity/cuteness. It probably shouldn't be used in real-world code. – Gabriel Oct 12 '16 at 07:46
In class User `use FindableTrait` should be `use MagicFindableTrait` – Manuel Jun 28 '18 at 16:42

hek2mgl · Answer 2 · 2013-06-24T02:15:19.460

3

No this will not work. While __call() is really nice for a dynamic coding style it's disadvantages are that you cannot enforce the signatures of the dynamic methods in an interface and you won't get an automated documentation for it.

But I think if you are at a point where you want to create an interface for those methods, there should be no need to use __call() anymore. I would just hardcode the methods.

edited Jun 24 '13 at 02:15

answered Jun 24 '13 at 02:01

hek2mgl

133,888
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Seems that you have a design problem. Would like to help more but the question is a little bit vague. Could you show a basic example? – hek2mgl Jun 24 '13 at 02:15

informing interface methods are implemented via __call?

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