Creating the Singleton design pattern in PHP5

Question

How would one create a Singleton class using PHP5 classes?

Answer 1

You don't really need to use Singleton pattern because it's considered to be an antipattern. Basically there is a lot of reasons to not to implement this pattern at all. Read this to start with: Best practice on PHP singleton classes.

If after all you still think you need to use Singleton pattern then we could write a class that will allow us to get Singleton functionality by extending our SingletonClassVendor abstract class.

This is what I came with to solve this problem.

Use example:

/**
 * EXAMPLE
 */

/**
 *  @example 1 - Database class by extending SingletonClassVendor abstract class becomes fully functional singleton
 *  __constructor must be set to protected becaouse: 
 *   1 to allow instansiation from parent class 
 *   2 to prevent direct instanciation of object with "new" keword.
 *   3 to meet requierments of SingletonClassVendor abstract class
 */
class Database extends SingletonClassVendor
{
    public $type = "SomeClass";
    protected function __construct(){
        echo "DDDDDDDDD". PHP_EOL; // remove this line after testing
    }
}


/**
 *  @example 2 - Config ...
 */
class Config extends SingletonClassVendor
{
    public $name = "Config";
    protected function __construct(){
        echo "CCCCCCCCCC" . PHP_EOL; // remove this line after testing
    }
}

Just to prove that it works as expected:

/**
 *  TESTING
 */
$bd1 = Database::getInstance(); // new
$bd2 = Database::getInstance(); // old
$bd3 = Config::getInstance(); // new
$bd4 = Config::getInstance(); // old
$bd5 = Config::getInstance(); // old
$bd6 = Database::getInstance(); // old
$bd7 = Database::getInstance(); // old
$bd8 = Config::getInstance(); // old

echo PHP_EOL."COMPARE ALL DATABASE INSTANCES".PHP_EOL;
var_dump($bd1);
echo '$bd1 === $bd2' . ($bd1 === $bd2)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE
echo '$bd2 === $bd6' . ($bd2 === $bd6)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE
echo '$bd6 === $bd7' . ($bd6 === $bd7)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE

echo PHP_EOL;

echo PHP_EOL."COMPARE ALL CONFIG INSTANCES". PHP_EOL;
var_dump($bd3);
echo '$bd3 === $bd4' . ($bd3 === $bd4)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE
echo '$bd4 === $bd5' . ($bd4 === $bd5)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE
echo '$bd5 === $bd8' . ($bd5 === $bd8)? ' TRUE' . PHP_EOL: ' FALSE' . PHP_EOL; // TRUE