Lesson 15 - Interfaces and abstract classes in PHP
PHP OOP Interfaces and abstract classes in PHP
In the previous lesson, Interfaces in PHP, we introduced you to interfaces. Today, we are going to finish up with the theoretical part and start working with what are known as abstract classes.
By-passing multiple inheritance
As you already know, PHP can only inherit from a single class. Regardless, before we move on, let's get to the root of dealing with having to inherit from more than one object in a complex application.
Class hierarchy
If we want an object to inherit from two classes, we'd have to create a class hierarchy and inherit the object multiple times (Human -> Programmer -> PhpProgrammer):
class Human { //... } class Programmer extends Human { //... } class PhpProgrammer extends Programmer { //... }
In this case, PhpProgrammer technically inherits from both the Human and Programmer classes.
Interface delegating
In order to bypass the lack of multiple inheritance, we would have to use interfaces
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In this lesson, we'll keep going with interfaces as well as introduce you to abstract classes. You'll learn to implement and delegate interfaces.
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