Objects Manipulation

Phalcon is a pure object-oriented framework for PHP. In this chapter, we explain how to make most common operations on objects using the Phalcon API.

Creation/Instantiation

Instantiate objects of the framework classes is easy:

//Instantiate a object from the Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Route class entry
PHALCON_INIT_VAR(route);
object_init_ex(route, phalcon_mvc_router_route_ce);

//Calling the constructor and passing a pattern as parameter
PHALCON_INIT_VAR(pattern);
ZVAL_STRING(pattern, "#^/([a-zA-Z0-9\\_]+)[/]{0,1}$#", 1);
PHALCON_CALL_METHOD_PARAMS_1_NORETURN(route, "__construct", pattern);

The above code is the same as doing in PHP:

<?php $route = new Phalcon\Mvc\Router\Route("#^/([a-zA-Z0-9\\_]+)[/]{0,1}$#");

Moreover, if is not a Phalcon class then objects must then initialized as follows:

zend_class_entry *reflection_ce;

//Obtain the ReflectionClass class entry, this will also call autoloaders
reflection_ce = zend_fetch_class(SL("ReflectionClass"), ZEND_FETCH_CLASS_AUTO TSRMLS_CC);

//Instantiate the Reflection object
PHALCON_INIT_VAR(reflection);
object_init_ex(reflection, reflection_ce);

//Pass a class name as constructor's parameter
PHALCON_CALL_METHOD_PARAMS_1_NORETURN(reflection, "__construct", class_name);

Reading/Writing Properties

Writing scalar values:

//Create a stdClass object
PHALCON_INIT_VAR(employee);
object_init(employee);

// $employee->name = "Sonny"
phalcon_update_property_string(employee, SL("name"), "Sonny" TSRMLS_CC);

// $employee->age = 23
phalcon_update_property_long(employee, SL("age"), 23 TSRMLS_CC);

//Read the "name" property $name = $employee->name
PHALCON_INIT_VAR(name);
phalcon_read_property(&name, employee, SL("name"), PH_NOISY_CC);

Assigning other zvals to properties:

PHALCON_INIT_VAR(language);
ZVAL_STRING(language, "English", 1);

PHALCON_INIT_VAR(employee);
object_init(employee);

// $employee->language = $language
phalcon_update_property_zval(employee, SL("language"), language TSRMLS_CC);

Reading/Writing dynamical properties:

PHALCON_INIT_VAR(language);
ZVAL_STRING(language, "English", 1);

PHALCON_INIT_VAR(property);
ZVAL_STRING(property, "language", 1);

PHALCON_INIT_VAR(employee);
object_init(employee);

// $employee->$property = $language
phalcon_update_property_zval_zval(employee, property, language TSRMLS_CC);

// $user_language = $employee->$property
PHALCON_INIT_VAR(user_language);
phalcon_read_property_zval(&user_language, employee, property, PH_NOISY_CC);

Reading/Writing static properties:

//Updating a static member with a string zval
PHALCON_INIT_VAR(greeting);
ZVAL_STRING(greeting, "hello world", 1);
phalcon_update_static_property(SL("phalcon\\some\\component"), SL("_someString"), greeting TSRMLS_CC);

//Updating a static member with a long zval
PHALCON_INIT_VAR(number);
ZVAL_LONG(number, 150);
phalcon_update_static_property(SL("phalcon\\some\\component"), SL("_someInteger"), number TSRMLS_CC);

//Reading a static member
PHALCON_OBSERVE_VAR(number);
phalcon_read_static_property(&number, SL("phalcon\\some\\component"), SL("_someInteger") TSRMLS_CC);