Php – Extending PHP static classes

classextendingoopPHP

I've been struggling in this area for days now, and I have reached a conclusion, but since the conclusion was not what I was looking for, before I give up, I'll try to see what other people say. Faith dies last…

Let's say we have a superclass (called "Super") and a subclass (called "Sub").

class Super {
    protected static $title = 'super';
    public static function get_class_name()        
    {
        echo __CLASS__;
    }
    public static function get_title()
    {
        echo self::$title;
    }
}
class Sub extends Super {
    protected static $title = 'sub';
}

Now, you would probably expect since Sub extends Super, that Sub would now inherit all of Super's methods, however, it seems to only receive references to the Sub's methods.

I say this because if I call:

Sub::get_class_name();

the output is "Super", and not "Sub".

And if I call:

Sub::get_title();

again, the output is "super", and I even have the $title declared in Sub.

So this means that when I call an inherited static function, the function's scope will be the super class, not the one called upon (even if you print the backtrace, it will show that the call was made on the superclass!!!), and in order to obtain the scope as the subclass that the call is being made upon, I need to redeclare that method inside that subclass. Well this kind of defeats the purpose of extending classes, don't it?

So my question is, can I ever extend a static class, call one of the inherited methods and have the subclass's scope? or at least to be able to identify it's classname?
And if not, why would I ever want to extend static classes?

Thanks!

Best Answer

Again, this is not possible prior to PHP 5.3.0.

Late Static Binding was introduced in PHP 5.3.0 and allows you to do exactly what you want via the static keyword.

class Super {
    protected static $title = 'super';
    public static function get_class_name()        
    {
        echo __CLASS__;
    }
    public static function get_title()
    {
        echo static::$title;
    }
}
class Sub extends Super {
    protected static $title = 'sub';
}

get_class_name() will still return Super though has __CLASS__ always returns the current class the method being run is declared in (kind of like __FILE__ which always returns the current file no matter if you included it or not).

For that you don't have any choice but to re-declare the function in the Sub class.

class Super {
    protected static $title = 'super';
    public static function get_class_name()        
    {
        echo __CLASS__;
    }
    public static function get_title()
    {
        echo static::$title;
    }
}
class Sub extends Super {
    protected static $title = 'sub';

    public static function get_class_name()        
    {
        echo __CLASS__;
    }
}

Related Solutions

Python – the difference between old style and new style classes in Python

From New-style and classic classes:

Up to Python 2.1, old-style classes were the only flavour available to the user.

The concept of (old-style) class is unrelated to the concept of type: if x is an instance of an old-style class, then x.__class__ designates the class of x, but type(x) is always <type 'instance'>.

This reflects the fact that all old-style instances, independently of their class, are implemented with a single built-in type, called instance.

New-style classes were introduced in Python 2.2 to unify the concepts of class and type. A new-style class is simply a user-defined type, no more, no less.

If x is an instance of a new-style class, then type(x) is typically the same as x.__class__ (although this is not guaranteed – a new-style class instance is permitted to override the value returned for x.__class__).

The major motivation for introducing new-style classes is to provide a unified object model with a full meta-model.

It also has a number of immediate benefits, like the ability to subclass most built-in types, or the introduction of "descriptors", which enable computed properties.

For compatibility reasons, classes are still old-style by default.

New-style classes are created by specifying another new-style class (i.e. a type) as a parent class, or the "top-level type" object if no other parent is needed.

The behaviour of new-style classes differs from that of old-style classes in a number of important details in addition to what type returns.

Some of these changes are fundamental to the new object model, like the way special methods are invoked. Others are "fixes" that could not be implemented before for compatibility concerns, like the method resolution order in case of multiple inheritance.

Python 3 only has new-style classes.

No matter if you subclass from object or not, classes are new-style in Python 3.

Php – How to prevent SQL injection in PHP

The correct way to avoid SQL injection attacks, no matter which database you use, is to separate the data from SQL, so that data stays data and will never be interpreted as commands by the SQL parser. It is possible to create SQL statement with correctly formatted data parts, but if you don't fully understand the details, you should always use prepared statements and parameterized queries. These are SQL statements that are sent to and parsed by the database server separately from any parameters. This way it is impossible for an attacker to inject malicious SQL.

You basically have two options to achieve this:

Using PDO (for any supported database driver):

 $stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM employees WHERE name = :name');

 $stmt->execute([ 'name' => $name ]);

 foreach ($stmt as $row) {
     // Do something with $row
 }

Using MySQLi (for MySQL):

 $stmt = $dbConnection->prepare('SELECT * FROM employees WHERE name = ?');
 $stmt->bind_param('s', $name); // 's' specifies the variable type => 'string'

 $stmt->execute();

 $result = $stmt->get_result();
 while ($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
     // Do something with $row
 }

If you're connecting to a database other than MySQL, there is a driver-specific second option that you can refer to (for example, pg_prepare() and pg_execute() for PostgreSQL). PDO is the universal option.

Correctly setting up the connection

Note that when using PDO to access a MySQL database real prepared statements are not used by default. To fix this you have to disable the emulation of prepared statements. An example of creating a connection using PDO is:

$dbConnection = new PDO('mysql:dbname=dbtest;host=127.0.0.1;charset=utf8', 'user', 'password');

$dbConnection->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES, false);
$dbConnection->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);

In the above example the error mode isn't strictly necessary, but it is advised to add it. This way the script will not stop with a Fatal Error when something goes wrong. And it gives the developer the chance to catch any error(s) which are thrown as PDOExceptions.

What is mandatory, however, is the first setAttribute() line, which tells PDO to disable emulated prepared statements and use real prepared statements. This makes sure the statement and the values aren't parsed by PHP before sending it to the MySQL server (giving a possible attacker no chance to inject malicious SQL).

Although you can set the charset in the options of the constructor, it's important to note that 'older' versions of PHP (before 5.3.6) silently ignored the charset parameter in the DSN.

Explanation

The SQL statement you pass to prepare is parsed and compiled by the database server. By specifying parameters (either a ? or a named parameter like :name in the example above) you tell the database engine where you want to filter on. Then when you call execute, the prepared statement is combined with the parameter values you specify.

The important thing here is that the parameter values are combined with the compiled statement, not an SQL string. SQL injection works by tricking the script into including malicious strings when it creates SQL to send to the database. So by sending the actual SQL separately from the parameters, you limit the risk of ending up with something you didn't intend.

Any parameters you send when using a prepared statement will just be treated as strings (although the database engine may do some optimization so parameters may end up as numbers too, of course). In the example above, if the $name variable contains 'Sarah'; DELETE FROM employees the result would simply be a search for the string "'Sarah'; DELETE FROM employees", and you will not end up with an empty table.

Another benefit of using prepared statements is that if you execute the same statement many times in the same session it will only be parsed and compiled once, giving you some speed gains.

Oh, and since you asked about how to do it for an insert, here's an example (using PDO):

$preparedStatement = $db->prepare('INSERT INTO table (column) VALUES (:column)');

$preparedStatement->execute([ 'column' => $unsafeValue ]);

Can prepared statements be used for dynamic queries?

While you can still use prepared statements for the query parameters, the structure of the dynamic query itself cannot be parametrized and certain query features cannot be parametrized.

For these specific scenarios, the best thing to do is use a whitelist filter that restricts the possible values.

// Value whitelist
// $dir can only be 'DESC', otherwise it will be 'ASC'
if (empty($dir) || $dir !== 'DESC') {
   $dir = 'ASC';
}