How to understand php polymorphism

Polymorphism means that the same operation, function, or process can act on multiple types of objects and obtain different results. Different objects can produce different results when receiving the same message. This phenomenon is called polymorphism.

Polymorphism allows each object to respond to common messages in a way that suits itself. Polymorphism enhances software flexibility and reusability.

1. What is polymorphism?

Polymorphism literally means "multiple shapes". It can be understood as multiple forms of expression, that is, "one external interface and multiple internal implementation methods." In object-oriented theory, the general definition of polymorphism is: the same operation will produce different execution results when applied to instances of different classes. That is, when objects of different types receive the same message, they will get different results.

In actual application development, the main purpose of using object-oriented polymorphism is that different subclass objects can be treated as one parent class, and the differences that exist between different subclass objects can be shielded. Differences, write common code, and make common programming to adapt to changing needs.

2. Polymorphic application design

In actual application development, usually in order to enable the project to easily expand and upgrade in the future, it is necessary to Implement reusable modules through inheritance for easy upgrades. When designing reusable modules, it is necessary to reduce the use of flow control statements as much as possible. At this point, you can use polymorphism to implement this type of design.

Example:

class painter{ //定义油漆工类
public function paintbrush(){ //定义油漆工动作
echo "油漆工正在刷漆！\n";
}
}
class typist{ //定义打字员类
public function typed(){ //定义打字员工作
echo "打字员正在打字！\n";
}
}
function printworking($obj){ //定义处理类
if($obj instanceof painter){ //若对象是油漆工类，则显示油漆工动作
$obj->paintbrush();
}elseif($obj instanceof typist){ //若对象是打字员类，则显示打字员动作
$obj->typed();
}else{ //若非以上类，则显示出错信息
echo "Error: 对象错误！";
}
}
printworking(new painter()); //显示员工工作
printworking(new typist()); //显示员工工作

Analysis: In the above program, first define two employee classes: painter class and typist class. Then define a processing function. In this function, it is judged whether the employee is a defined employee and the employee's work status is printed out. The results are shown below.

The painter is painting
The typist is typing

It can be easily seen from the above program that if you want to display the working status of several employees, you need to first define the employee class. And define the employee's work in the employee class, and then add an elseif statement in the printworking() function to check which employee class the object is. This is very undesirable in practical applications. If polymorphism is used at this time, this problem can be easily solved.

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