is it possible to add traits to a class in PHP in runtime?

php traits
Thomas Lauria picture Thomas Lauria · Jan 16, 2013 · Viewed 11.1k times · Source

Simple question, is it possible to dynamically add traits to a php class in runtime without using eval?

Answer

GordonM picture GordonM · Jan 16, 2013

As Glavic said, you can't without using eval() or reflection hacks (and I'm not even sure about that).

But it's very unlikely you really need to.

You can achieve a lot with dynamic class composition (composing a class with some functionality you want into another class). That's simply a matter of putting a reference to the class with the desired functionality into a variable in the hosting class. 

class SomeClassWithNeededFunctionality {}

class SomeClassThatNeedsTheFunctionalityOfTheOtherClass {
    private $serviceClass = NULL;

    public function __construct (SomeClassWithNeededFunctionality $serviceClass) {
        $this -> serviceClass = $serviceClass;
    }
}

Related questions

Traits vs. interfaces

I've been trying to study up on PHP lately, and I find myself getting hung up on traits. I understand the concept of horizontal code reuse and not wanting to necessarily inherit from an abstract class. What I don't understand …

Read More
How to override trait function and call it from the overridden function?

Scenario: trait A { function calc($v) { return $v+1; } } class MyClass { use A; function calc($v) { $v++; return A::calc($v); } } print (new MyClass())->calc(2); // should print 4 This code doesn't work, and I cannot find a way to call …

Read More
Traits in PHP – any real world examples/best practices?

Traits have been one of the biggest additions for PHP 5.4. I know the syntax and understand the idea behind traits, like horizontal code re-use for common stuff like logging, security, caching etc. However, I still don't know how I would …

Read More