eZ Components - Base

Introduction

The Base component provides the basic functionality, such as autoloading, that all eZ Components need to function properly. The Base component needs to be loaded specifically. Base can also autoload external class repositories from outside the eZ Components.

Aside from the autoload functionality, the Base component also contains a number of generic Exception classes that all inherit from the Ezc\Base\Exception class.

Installation

The installation and configuration of the eZ Components environment is described in a separate article. Please refer to the Components Introduction for instructions on installation and configuration of the eZ Components library and the Base component.

Usage

Debugging

By default the Ezc\Base\Base component's autoload mechanism will not throw an exception when an autoload class can not be found. In some cases (during development) it is useful to have an exception with detailed information about which autoload files were searched for, and in which directories. Ezc\Base\Base supports an option that enables this behavior:

<?php
    use Ezc\Base\Base;
    use Ezc\Base\Options\AutoloadOptions;
    
    $options = new AutoloadOptions();
    $options->debug = true;
    Base::setOptions( $options );

Warning: Exceptions are ignored when they are thrown from an autoload() handler in PHP. In order to see the exception message that is thrown when a class can not be found, you need to catch the exception in the autoload() handler. Your autoload() function could then look like:

<?php
    use Ezc\Base\Base;

    function __autoload( $className )
    {
        try
        {
            Base::autoload( $className );
        }
        catch ( Exception $e )
        {
            echo $e->getMessage();
        }
    }

Preloading

The default autoload policy of the eZ Components is to load every class file on demand only. It is also possible to load all classes of one component at the same time, when one of the component's classes is requested for the first time. You can change this behavior with the "preload" option that is available through the Ezc\Base\AutoloadOptions option class. You can turn preloading on with:

<?php
    use Ezc\Base\Base;
    use Ezc\Base\Options\AutoloadOptions;

    $options = new AutoloadOptions();
    $options->preload = true;
    Base::setOptions( $options );

Please note that preloading will not be done for Exception classes.

Adding class repositories located outside eZ Components to autoload system

It can be useful to add repositories of user-defined classes to the eZ Components autoload system. The Ezc\Base\Base::addClassRepository() method can be used to perform this task. You need to arrange the desired external classes in a class repository. That is, make sure that classes and corresponding *_autoload.php files are named and placed according to the explanations below. After they are in the proper structure, you can call addClassRepository() with the proper parameters before you use the external classes. External classes will then be loaded by autoload system.

Ezc\Base\Base::addClassRepository() takes two arguments:

$basePath is the base path for the whole class repository.
$autoloadDirPath is the path where autoload files for this repository are found.

The paths in the autoload files are not relative to the package directory as specified by the $basePath argument. In other words, class definition files will only be searched for in the location $autoloadDirPath.

Consider the following example:

There is a class repository stored in the directory "./repos".
Autoload files for this repository are stored in "./repos/autoloads".
There are two components in this repository: "Me" and "You".
The "Me" component has the classes "erMyClass1" and "erMyClass2".
The "You" component has the classes "erYourClass1" and "erYourClass2".

In this case, you need to create the following files in "./repos/autoloads". Note that the prefix to _autoload.php ("my" and "your") in the filename is the first part of the classname (excluding the lowercase classname prefix - "er").

Content of my_autoload.php:

Content of your_autoload.php:

The directory structure for the external repository is then: :

./repos/autoloads/my_autoload.php
./repos/autoloads/your_autoload.php
./repos/Me/myclass1.php
./repos/Me/myclass2.php
./repos/You/yourclass1.php
./repos/You/yourclass2.php

To use this repository with the autoload mechanism, use the following code:

The above code will output: :

Class 'erMyClass2'
Class 'erYourClass1'

Lazy initialization

Lazy initialization is a mechanism to load and configure a component, only when it is really used in your application. This mechanism saves time for parsing the classes and configuration, when the component is not used at all during one request. The implementation in Ezc\Base\Init may be reused by other applications and components, like the following example will show.

The example shows a random class implementing the singleton pattern, which may be some database connection handler, or anything similar in your case. The getInstance() method shows a typical PHP 5 implementation except the additional line 14, which checks, if a configuration callback was provided earlier and configures the newly created instance. If no configuration callback was provided, nothing will happen. The customKey is used to receive the right callback from Ezc\Base\Init and needs to be known by the user, who wants to define a configuration callback for your class.

In line 32 the class used to configure your instance on creation is defined. The first parameter is the key used earlier in the getInstance method, to reference the right class, and the second parameter is the name of your configuration class.

The configuration class beginning in line 22 just needs to implement the Ezc\Base\ConfigurationInitializer interface, which defines one method: configureObject(). This method will be called with the object to configure as a single parameter. In the example, a new public property on the customSingleton instance is created, which will be echo'd later to show the success of the configuration.

The configuration itself will not happen before the actual instance is created in line 35 performing the static call on customSingleton::getInstance(). The var_dump() in the following line shows, that the property value is set and contains the earlier set value (int) 42.

File Operations

Finding files recursively

This example shows how to use the Ezc\Base\File::findRecursive() method:

The code in this example searches for files in the /dat/dev/ezcomponents directory. It will only include files that match all patterns in the $includeFilters array (the second parameter). Files that match any of the patterns in the $excludeFilters array (the third parameter) will not be returned.

In other words, the code above searches for files in the dat/dev/ezcomponents directory, which are in the src/ directory and end with _autoload.php, except for files that are in the /autoload/ directory.

Removing directories recursively

This example shows how to use the Ezc\Base\File::removeRecursive() method:

This code simply removes the directory /dat/dev/ezcomponents/trash and all of its files and sub-directories.

Warning: Use this function with care, as it has the potential to erase everything that the current user has access to.

Overloading the callback

The Ezc\Base\File::findRecursive() method internally uses the Ezc\Base\File::walkRecursive() method to do the actual recursing. The callback method Ezc\Base\File::findRecursiveCallback() is then responsible for collecting the data. In case you want to do additional things, such as printing progress, you can either call walkRecursive() yourself with a callback function of your choice, or overload the Ezc\Base\File class and provide a new findRecursiveCallback() method. The code below uses Ezc\Base\File::walkRecursive() directly in order to display dots for when ever it finds a new directory:

rmed19/Base