Chaining PHP Class Methods

[iwato]

BACKGROUND:  While implementing Peppe Occhi's CRON Scheduler I have come across several lines of code that I am not entirely familiar.  In particular I am concerned with the following:

$scheduler->php('script.php')->hourly();

found under the heading Schedules execution time. It appears to be of this format

$some_instance->some_methodA(arguments)->method_B(arguments);

QUESTION:  Is the above expression equivalent to the following:

$some_instance->some_methodA(arguments);
$some_instance->method_B(arguments);

In other words, the following is correct:

$scheduler->php(
	'path_to_folder/script.php',
	'path_to_php_version/ea-php72',
	['-c' => 'ignore','--merge' => null,],
	'file_name'
);
$scheduler->hourly();

Please advise.

Roddy

 

 

[Ingolme]

No, it's not equivalent, there are actually two objects there: One is the scheduler and the other is whatever thing the scheduler's php() method is returning.

The above code is equivalent to this:

$thing = $scheduler->php('script.php');
$thing->hourly();

I don't know what type of object $thing is, since I haven't read the documentation.

The concept of chaining is not native to any language, it only happens if somebody designed the objects to work that way.

[iwato]

FOLLOW-UP QUESTION:  In light of the above does the following make sense:

$matomo_api = new Scheduler();
	
$matomo_freq = $matomo_api->php('.../fetch_and_store.php','.../bin/ea-php72',['-c' => 'ignore','--merge' => null,],'matomo_api');

$matomo_freq->hourly();
$matomo_api->run();

Roddy

 

[Ingolme]

That will probably work. You should test it to make sure. Run the code and see if it does what you expected it to.