Is there a better way to design these classes?

Question

I have two business classes: TimesheetDay and TimeSlot. One TimesheetDay can have one or more TimeSlots.

The TimesheetDay and TimeSlot classes will be dependent on an object that implements a corresponding TimesheetDayData and TimeSlotData interface. That way, I can write data classes to map the objects to a MySQL database, but if I use another way to store the data in the future, I can inject objects from a different dataclass.

These objects will not create other objects, and I refuse to use the "new" keyword in them. I want them to be testable in complete isolation.

For example, I instantiate a TimesheetDay object like this (in a container):

$mTimesheetDayData = new TimesheetDayMysqlData($databaseHost, $timesheetDayId);
$mTimesheetDay = new TimesheetDay($mTimesheetDayData);

TimeSlot objects will be constructed the same way:

$mTimeSlotData = new TimeSlotMySqlData($databaseHost, $timeSlotId);
$mTimeSlot = new TimeSlot($mTimeSlotData);

My problem lies in getting TimeSlot objects that the TimesheetDay contains. I can't have the TimesheetDay class creating objects. Otherwise, I might write a method that returns an array of TimeSlot objects, something like:

$timeSlotsForThatDay = array();
$timeSlotsForThatDay = $mTimesheetDay->getTimeSlots();

But, that would require the method getTimeSlots() to create objects.

How would you handle this?

Answer 1

I recommend to create one more class - TimesheetDataMapper, it would map mysql data and objects. As I understand, you intend to make TimesheetDay and TimeSlot as POPO (Plain Old Php Object). That is a good intention :)

So what you have to do is inject TimeSlotMySqlData into TimesheetDataMapper, there have a method getTimesheetDay($someCriteriaOrId); which would get the data from mysql based on criteria, create new object TimesheetDay, select time slot data & inject it into TimesheetDay.

class TimesheetDataMapper {
    protected function _getTimeSlotData($someCriteriaOrId)
    {
         $timeSlotsForReturn = array();

         $someTimeSlotListFromDb; 
         foreach ($someTimeSlotListFromDb as $timeSlotData) {
             $timeSlotsForReturn[] = new TimeSlot($timeSlotData);
         } 

         return $timeSlotsForReturn;
    }
    public function getTimesheetDay($someCriteriaOrId) 
    {
        $timeSlotData = $this->_getTimeSlotData($someCriteriaOrId);
        $timesheetDay = new TimesheetDay($timeSlotData);

        return $timesheetDay;
    }
}

You could also have some setters/getters on TimesheetDay / TimeSlot.

Answer 2

The TimesheetDay object should query the database for data to construct its list of TimeSlots, either when it is constructed, or the first time getTimeSlots is called.