Safe Extraction Operator in Chains in OOP in PHP
The safe extraction operator ?->
can be used in call chains.
Let's look at an example.
Suppose we have the following classes:
<?php
class User {
public $city = null;
}
class City {
public function getName() {
return 'city name';
}
}
?>
Suppose we want to get the user's city through the chain:
<?php
$user = new User();
$user->city = new City();
echo $user->city->getName();
?>
In case the city is equal to null
,
calling such a chain will cause an error:
<?php
$user = new User();
$user->city = null;
echo $user->city->getName(); // error
?>
To suppress the error, we can use the safe extraction operator:
<?php
$user = new User();
$user->city = null;
echo $user->city?->getName();
?>
Suppose now the city can also be null
.
In this case, we can use the operator
safe extraction twice:
<?php
$user = null;
echo $user?->city?->getName();
?>
Improve the following code using the safe extraction operator:
<?php
class Employee {
public $name;
public $position;
public function __construct($name, $position)
{
$this->name = $name;
$this->position = $position;
}
}
class Position {
private $name;
public function __construct($name)
{
$this->name = $name;
}
public function getName() {
return $this->name;
}
}
$position = new Position('developer');
$employee = new Employee('john', $position);
echo $employee->position->getName();
?>