Tag Archive for 'php template method'

PHP Template Method Pattern: Geolocation Encapsulated

Published on April 11, 2015 by Bill Sanders in Hollywood Principle, OOP and Design Pattern Principles and Template Method. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

bostonI was invited to speak at on April 22 at Microsoft’s NERD Center in Boston for Month 4 of Boston PHP’s 200 Days of Code. The Advanced track of 200 Days of Coding is going through Larry Ullman’s book, PHP Advanced & OO Programming (3rd ed), and I’ll be talking about materials from Chapters 8-10. However, with a little over an hour, I am using Occam’s razor to keep things focused, pertinent and related to the relevant chapters. Chapter 10 is about Networking with PHP, and by way of preview, I thought I’d take the material that Larry has on geolocation, and put it into an OOP structure using the Template Method design pattern. I also made a number of other modifications for which Larry cannot be blamed! Go ahead and Play the program to see what it does and Download the code. (The text window defaults to sandlight.com but you can add any URL you want.)
PlayDownload

The Magical Template Method

The first thing I did was to set up the geolocation app with a Template Method. You can see previous discussions and examples of the Template Method on this blog, but I wanted to include the class diagram the Gang of Four used to see how simple but elegant this pattern actually is. Figure 1 shows this subtle but powerful method:

Figure 1: Template Method class diagram

Figure 1: Template Method class diagram

The nice thing about this design pattern is that it has lots of uses as you may have already seen on this blog. However, the same simple principle is used: Abstract methods from an abstract class are implemented in a concrete method from the same abstract class. What the Template Method does is to provide a blueprint for the order of the methods to be used with the exact content dependent on the intended use.

So, starting with the abstract class, you can see how this implementation works:

?View Code PHP 
< ?php
abstract class ILocatorTemplate
{
    protected $url, $info, $data, $ip, $loc;
    protected $package=array();
    protected abstract function getLocation();
    protected abstract function bundle();
 
    //The Template Method
    protected function templateMethod()
    {
        $this->getLocation();
        $this->bundle();
    }
}
?>

A number of protected properties are first declared, including an array object, $package. Next the two primitive operations are declared, getLocation() and bundle(). The former is for getting the geolocation of a URL and the second for placing that information into the $package object. That’s it! All that’s left to do is to implement the abstract class.

The Locator class

The concrete implementation of the ILocatorTemplate adds content to the properties and concrete operations to the two abstract methods.

?View Code PHP 
< ?php 
class Locator extends ILocatorTemplate
{
    public function doLocate($place)
    {
        $this->loc = $place;
        $this->templateMethod();
        return $this->package;
    }
 
    protected function getLocation()
    { 
        $this->ip = gethostbyname($this->loc);
        $this->url = 'http://freegeoip.net/csv/' . $this->ip;
 
        $this->info = fopen($this->url, 'r');
        $this->data = fgetcsv($this->info);
        fclose($this->info);
    }
 
    protected function bundle()
    {
        $this->package['IP']=$this->data[0];
        $this->package['CountryID']=$this->data[1];
        $this->package['Country']=$this->data[2];
        $this->package['StateID']=$this->data[3];
        $this->package['State']=$this->data[4];
        $this->package['City']=$this->data[5];
        $this->package['Zip']=$this->data[6];
        $this->package['latitude']=$this->data[7];
        $this->package['longitude']=$this->data[8];
    }
}
?>

The doLocate() method holds the URL passed by the user. That is placed into one of the properties declared in the abstract class, $loc. Next, the $templateMethod() fires and it, in turn, launches first the getLocation() method and then the bundle() method. It doesn’t matter what is in those methods because they were defined abstractly. Therefore, any abstract method defined as part of template method will launch regardless of its implementation, as long as it adheres to the signature form in the abstract class. The getLocation() method pretty much follows the steps Larry lays out in Chapter 10. It uses the freegeoip.net Web service which returns CSV data with the location information.

The bundle() method transfers the data from the $data array send by the Web service into an associative array, $package. The keys in the associative array will serve as labels for the data once processed in the Client class.

The last step in the process is to return the $package containing an associative array with descriptive keys and location information. That’s it….but there is one more thing before we turn to the UI and client.

The Hollywood Principle

The Template Method exemplifies a larger design pattern principle called the Hollywood Principle, simply stated,

Don’t call us. We’ll call you.

It refers to how a parent class (ILocatorTemplate) call the operations of a subclass (Locator) and not the other way around. The templateMethod() function is a concrete method from the parent class, and both the getLocation() and bundle() methods are implementations of the child class, Locator. So, the parent class method calls the child class implementations; not vice versa. This fundamental principle will help keep your PHP OOP from getting tangled up.
Continue reading ‘PHP Template Method Pattern: Geolocation Encapsulated’

Easy PHP Multiple MySql Update: Template Method to the Rescue

Published on November 19, 2013 by Bill Sanders in MySql Operation and Template Method. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

oopgirlThink Object Solutions

The other day I was working on an app to automatically update a site to a mobile device on a daily basis. The prototype uses a MySql table with three fields and only seven records, one for each day of the week. Each week, using an HTML UI, the administrator adds new headers, graphic urls and write-ups for each day of the week. These are stored in the MySql database, and the graphics are placed into an “images” folder.

For each day of the week, I needed to update three fields in the MySql table. In looking at the MySql docs I found that updates are carried out one field at a time even though I found some workarounds, none seemed too reliable, and the docs suggested as much. So I’d have to make three separate operations. That should be easy enough—a single update class with methods for each of the three fields I needed to update. Before we get started, you can see the update process and download the code using the two buttons below:
PlayDownload

One Class to Handle Multiple Updates

What makes SQL updates easy is that the SQL statements usually only involve a single field and table. So one way to look at multiple updates is to take three simple statements and provide each one its own method. There is a sequence to follow; so why not put them into a Template Method? (See previous posts on the Template Method design pattern in PHP for more details on its purpose. An overview can be found in the Design Pattern Table).

To start off, we’ll see what the skeleton of the operations look like:

  1. update header
  2. update picture url
  3. update write-up

Next, we’ll create an abstract class to reflect that order but not providing any content. Also, we’ll add properties likely to be needed:

?View Code PHP 
< ?php
abstract class IUpdate
{
    //Update methods
    abstract protected function doHeader();
    abstract protected function doPix();
    abstract protected function doWriteup();
 
    //Update Properties
    protected $pixhead;
    protected $pix;
    protected $writeup;
    protected $day;
 
    //MySql Properties
    protected $tableMaster;
    protected $sql;
    protected $hookup;
 
    //Template method
    protected function updateAll()
    {
        $this->doHeader();
        $this->doPix();
        $this->doWriteup();
    }
}
?>

With the template method in place (updateAll()), build a class to implement the abstract methods. The data for the methods is contained in the HTML variables passed from the UI; and we’ll need a day-day-of-the week object to plant the date in the correct location. First, look at the Update class and then the HTML UI that passed on the data:(Click the link to see the rest of the post and how the template method is implemented.) Continue reading ‘Easy PHP Multiple MySql Update: Template Method to the Rescue’