How to define method chaining in PHP [duplicate]

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PHP method chaining?

I want to use functions combined, like:

select("SELECT * FROM users").where("user=l0 ").join(" . . . ");

How to define this in php?

I feel I should warn you that this kind of thing is a lot harder to write than it looks. The simple example you've given won't be hard to achieve, but also won't achieve much (you might just as well write the query as a string). If you want it to do anything clever, it will be a very big project. — Spudley
– Spudley, Commented Nov 1, 2012 at 20:00

hakre · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-01 20:34:50Z

4

function select(){ .... return new myType; } class myType { function where(){ ... return $this; } function join(){ ... return $this; } }

Remember to use -> instead of . in PHP.

This is an example of PHP function chaining.

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answered Nov 1, 2012 at 19:51

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1 Comment

@user1792423 you don't unless you are just concatting strings (which I do not think you want to do).

footy · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-01 19:53:28Z

The function returns a string and you concatenate the return values of multiple functions.

function select($input) { //process $input return $output; } function where($input) { //process $input return $output; }

In your php you can call these functions and get the returning result concatenated.