Cloning in PHP5
PHP5 with its much improved object-oriented style passes objects by reference by default. To create a copy of an object, a new construct ‘clone’ is introduced. Cloning an object in PHP5 creates a shallow copy – any properties that are references to other variables, will remain references. Additionally, PHP5 brings the __clone() magic method to allow you to customise the cloning behaviour of objects, making those referenced objects full copies if that is the desired behaviour.
Zend_Config
Zend_Config is a component of the Zend Framework. Zend_Config makes it trivial to load configuration data into PHP from a range of file types.
Using Zend_Config is easy:
$config = new Zend_Config_Xml('/path/to/config');
echo $config->database->host;
In a particular scenario of mine I have a heirachy of config files, each inheriting data from it’s parent and overwriting keys if necessary. Merging two config files to get the resultant is also trivial:
(void) $parent->merge($child);
The Zend_Config instance $parent has now been augmented with the values of the Zend_Config instance $child and keys may have been overwritten in the parent if a value for that key existed in the child.
Here lies my problem: What I really wanted to do was keep $parent as it was whilst creating a new instance that was the product of $parent merged with $child.
Easy:
$newConfig = clone $parent;
$newConfig->merge($child);
Or not… Currently Zend_Config only implements a shallow clone which effectively means my $newConfig is still tied up with $parent. In fact if I make changes to $newConfig, those changes may well be reflected in $parent. This is not the side-effect-free behaviour I expected when using clone.
It is true that Zend_Config is typically meant to be used in read-only situations but the power of merging has been realised and implemented, making Zend_Config often used in read-write situations aswell (here writing refers to changing the values in the instance, not the source configuration file).
Here is an example of the problem:
$parent = new Zend_Config(array('key' => array('nested' => 'parent')), true); //allow read-write for merging
$newConfig = clone $parent;
$newConfig->merge(new Zend_Config(array('key' => array('nested' => 'override')), true));
echo $newConfig->key->nested; // 'override' - as expected
echo $parent->key->nested; // 'override' - I was expecting this to be 'parent'
This is actually perfectly reasonable behaviour for a shallow clone – The nested data value was cloned only by reference so (Zend_Config) $newConfig->key is actually a reference to the original (Zend_Config) $parent->key object and so changing any one will affect the other. However, this is not what I would expect to happen when cloning a Zend_Config object.
Solution 1: toArray
The toArray solution is simple: Flatten the Zend_Config object to a simple array and create a brand new Zend_Config object with the data. All objects are copied into the array and we get a deep copy of the object.
$parent = new Zend_Config(array('key' => array('nested' => 'parent')), true); //allow read-write for merging
$newConfig = new Zend_Config($parent->toArray(), true); //cast the parent object to an array and create a new Zend_Config
$newConfig->merge(new Zend_Config(array('key' => array('nested' => 'override')), true));
echo $newConfig->key->nested; // 'override' - as expected
echo $parent->key->nested; // 'parent' - as expected
Solution 2: Performing a Deep Clone
OK – That’s how deep cloning is achieved with the current release but what about the problem of the misleading and unexpected operation of the clone construct? The simple and intuitive solution is to create a __clone() method that generates a full deep clone which is completely independent:
/**
* Perform a deep clone of this instance to allow side-effect free cloning.
* @return void
*/
public function __clone()
{
$data = array();
foreach ($this->_data as $key => $value)
{
if ($value instanceof Zend_Config)
{
$data[$key] = clone $value;
} else {
$data[$key] = $value;
}
}
$this->_data = $data;
}
Now we can do a full clone intuitively without having to cast to an array first:
$parent = new Zend_Config(array('key' => array('nested' => 'parent')), true); //allow read-write for merging
$newConfig = clone $parent;
$newConfig->merge(new Zend_Config(array('key' => array('nested' => 'override')), true));
echo $newConfig->key->nested; // 'override' - as expected
echo $parent->key->nested; // 'parent' - as expected
Summary
To summarise, cloning a Zend_Config object doesn’t have intuitive results due to shallow cloning. To get a full clone we must cast the original object to an array before creating a brand new instance. Alternatively, the Zend_Config class should implement deep cloning to get the desired and expected behaviour.
Test cases, the extended class, and a patch can be downloaded here (tests work on R9566 as provided in the file).
Supporting Test Cases
/**
* This file is part of ZendConfigClone
*
* @package ZendConfigClone
* @author Daniel Skinner
*/
require_once dirname(__FILE__) . '/../AbstractTest.php';
/**
*/
class ZendConfigCloneTest extends AbstractTest
{
/**
* 0 - Use original Zend_Config object R9566
* 1 - Use new ZendConfigClone object
*
*/
const VERSION = 1;
public function setUp ()
{
$this->baseConfig = self::factory(array(
'value1' => 'base1',
'value2' => array(
'nestedkey' => 'nestedvalue'
)
), true);
}
/**
* As expected, flattening the object into an array prevents any
* references from being maintained and allows for a complete clone
* of the Zend_Config object.
*
*/
public function testToArrayDoesNotKeepReferences()
{
$newConfig = self::factory($this->baseConfig->toArray(), true);
$newConfig->value1 = 'newvalue1';
$this->assertNotEquals($newConfig->value1, $this->baseConfig->value1);
$this->assertEquals($newConfig->value2->nestedkey, $this->baseConfig->value2->nestedkey);
}
/**
* As expected, flattening the object into an array prevents any
* references from being maintained and allows for a complete clone
* of the Zend_Config object.
*
*/
public function testNestedToArrayDoesNotKeepReferences()
{
$newConfig = self::factory($this->baseConfig->toArray(), true);
$newConfig->value2->nestedkey = 'newvalue1';
$this->assertNotEquals($newConfig->value2->nestedkey, $this->baseConfig->value2->nestedkey);
}
/**
* With the current Zend_Config, a shallow clone will copy
* first level values correctly.
*
*/
public function testShallowCloneDoesNotKeepReferences()
{
$newConfig = clone $this->baseConfig;
$newConfig->value1 = 'newvalue1';
$this->assertNotEquals($newConfig->value1, $this->baseConfig->value1);
}
/**
* Currently cloning Zend_Config isn't side-effect free.
*
* A shallow clone means deep nested Zend_Config objects are
* not cloned and changing values in the cloned object still
* affects the original.
*
* This test should pass with ZendConfigClone
*
*/
public function testDeepCloneDoesNotKeepReferences()
{
$newConfig = clone $this->baseConfig;
$newConfig->value2->nestedkey = 'newvalue1';
$this->assertNotEquals($newConfig->value2->nestedkey, $this->baseConfig->value2->nestedkey);
}
/**
* Factory method for generating a concrete Zend_Config instance
*
* @param mixed $arg,... Arguments to pass to the constructor
* @return Zend_Config
*/
private static function factory()
{
$args = func_get_args();
switch (self::VERSION)
{
//Zend_Config
case 0:
$refObj = new ReflectionClass('Zend_Config');
return $refObj->newInstanceArgs($args);
break;
//ZendConfigClone
case 1:
$refObj = new ReflectionClass('ZendConfigClone');
return $refObj->newInstanceArgs($args);
break;
}
throw new Exception('VERSION should be enum{0, 1}');
}
}
A new class with deep clone functionality for testing:
/**
* This file is part of ZendConfigClone
*
* @package ZendConfigClone
* @author Daniel Skinner
*/
class ZendConfigClone extends Zend_Config
{
/**
* Perform a deep clone of this instance to allow side-effect free cloning.
* @return void
*/
public function __clone()
{
$data = array();
foreach ($this->_data as $key => $value)
{
if ($value instanceof Zend_Config)
{
$data[$key] = clone $value;
} else {
$data[$key] = $value;
}
}
$this->_data = $data;
}
}
