How should be my Service method signature?

Question

I'm using a Service Layer, and until now I used a ServiceObject (which implements ArrayAccess, Iterator, Countable) but I'm wondering if it's a good ideas.

Would you do:

ArticleService::createArticle($articleData, $userId);

or

ArticleService::createArticle(ServiceObject $data);

where $data are:

array(
  'title' => 'Lorem ipsum',
  'body'  => 'Dolor sid amet',
  'userId' => 55,
);

The ServiceObject has the benefit to provide a common Signature for every method, however sometimes it doesn't look efficient, and it is not widely used, it loses its interests.

Any feedback?

Answer 1

Change it to:

ArticleService::createArticle($title, $body, $user_id);

This makes it very clear what you need to create an 'Article'.

'option' arrays like your $articleData and $data are impossible to intellisense sensibly and I would advise against it.

Trash your idea for a generic ServiceObject it's actually a very bad idea. Your motives are noble but this is the wrong solution.

If you need more convincing, feel free to poke.

Answer 2

I think the best approach here would be to have something like

$article = new Article;
$article->title = "Lorem ipsum"
$article->body = "Dolor sit amet"
$article->creator = $userID
ArticleService::createArticle($article)

Though presumably "createArticle" would not be the best name for the function any more, seeing as the Article object was already created. You would probably have something like ArticleService::publishArticle($article) though I don't know what you are making.

What you want is to separate the construction of your data (Article) from the usage of it (ArticleService).

What I'm really trying to say is don't make the argument of createArticle a generic array or "ServiceObject", both of which are useless abstractions of argument lists, make it a class that really represents the relevant entity.