exar-framework

A lightweight AOP layer for PHP.

Installation

The simplest way to use Exar is to install it via Composer.

Create a composer.json file in your project root and define the dependency:

{
    "require": {
        "techdev-solutions/exar": "dev-master"
    },
    "minimum-stability": "dev"
}

Install Composer in your project:

curl -s http://getcomposer.org/installer | php

Tell Composer to download and install the dependencies:

php composer.phar install

Now you are ready to code with Exar!

Creating a simple PHP application using Exar

Create a package with a PHP class (e.g. /lib/MyProject/Person.php) that will become AOP features provided by Exar:

namespace MyProject;

/**
 * @Exar
 */
class Person {
	private $firstName;
	private $lastName;

	public function __construct($firstName, $lastName) {
		$this->firstName = $firstName;
		$this->lastName = $lastName;
	}

	/**
	 * @Track
	 */
	public function setFirstName($firstName) {
		$this->firstName = $firstName;
	}

	public function getFirstName() {
		return $this->firstName;
	}

	public function getLastName() {
		return $this->lastName;
	}
}

Create index.php file in the project root which will be the main file of your application:

/** load Composer dependencies */
require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';

/** add your class directory (where MyProject/Person.php is) to the include path */
set_include_path(dirname(__FILE__) . '/lib/' . PATH_SEPARATOR . get_include_path());

/** register namespaces that will be loaded by Exar (the namespace of Person.php) */
Exar\Autoloader::register(dirname(__FILE__) . '/_cache', array('MyProject'));

$person = new MyProject\Person('John', 'Smith');
echo 'first name = '.$person->getFirstName() . PHP_EOL;
echo 'last name = '.$person->getLastName() . PHP_EOL;

$person->setFirstName('Jim');
echo 'first name = '.$person->getFirstName() . PHP_EOL;
echo 'last name = '.$person->getLastName() . PHP_EOL;

Now run index.php and see the console output:

first name = John
last name = Smith
Before invocation: MyProject\Person->setFirstName (03.07.2014 11:45:48)
After returning: MyProject\Person->setFirstName (03.07.2014 11:45:48)
After invocation: MyProject\Person->setFirstName (03.07.2014 11:45:48)
first name = Jim
last name = Smith

What happened?

You created a Person object and printed the first and the last name. After that, you set the first name again. Since the method setFirstName is annotated with @Track, Exar intercepts the method execution and invokes the correspondent interceptor code. In this case, @Track just echoes the class and the name of the intercepted method, with the current timestamp. This example shows how Exar works: It adds functionality to your PHP classes on the basis of annotations within docblocks.

Stay tuned for more docs and examples!