Is what seems like polymorphism in PHP really polymorphism?

Question

Trying to figure out whether PHP supports features like method overloading, inheritance, and polymorphism, I found out:

• it does not support method overloading
• it does support inheritance

but I am unsure about polymorphism. I found this Googling the Internet:

I should note that in PHP the polymorphism isn't quite the way it should be. I mean that it does work, but since we have a weak datatype, its not correct.

So is it really polymorphism?

Edit Just can't quite place a definite YES or NO next to PHP supports polymorphism. I would be loath to state: "PHP does not support polymorphism", when in reality it does. Or vice-versa.

Answer 1

class Animal {
    var $name;
    function __construct($name) {
        $this->name = $name;
    }
}

class Dog extends Animal {
    function speak() {
        return "Woof, woof!";
    }
}

class Cat extends Animal {
    function speak() {
        return "Meow...";
    }
}

$animals = array(new Dog('Skip'), new Cat('Snowball'));

foreach($animals as $animal) {
    print $animal->name . " says: " . $animal->speak() . '<br>';
}

You can label it all you want, but that looks like polymorphism to me.

Answer 2

although PHP does not support method overloading the way you have experienced in other languages, say Java. but you CAN have method overloading in PHP, but the definition method is different. if you want to have different functionality for a given method, with different set of parameters in PHP, you can do something like this:

class myClass {
    public function overloadedMethod() {
        // func_num_args() is a build-in function that returns an Integer.
        // the number of parameters passed to the method.
        if ( func_num_args() > 1 ) {
            $param1 = func_get_arg(0);
            $param2 = func_get_arg(1);
            $this->_overloadedMethodImplementation2($param1,$param2)
        } else {
            $param1 = func_get_arg(0);
            $this->_overloadedMethodImplementation1($param1)
        }
    }

    protected function _overloadedMethodImplementation1($param1) {
        // code 1
    }

    protected function _overloadedMethodImplementation2($param1,$param2) {
        // code 2
    }
}

there could be cleaner implementation, but this is just a sample.

PHP supports inheritance and interfaces. so you can have polymorphism using them. you can have an interface like this:

// file: MyBackupInterface.php
interface MyBackupInterface {
    // saves the data on a reliable storage
    public function saveData();
    public function setData();
}

// file: myBackupAbstract.php
require_once 'MyBackupInterface.php';
class MyBackupAbstract implements MyBackupInterface {
     protected $_data;
     public function setData($data) {
         $this->_data= $data;
     }
     // there is no abstract modifier in PHP. so le'ts avoid this class to be used in other ways
     public function __construct() {
          throw new Exception('this class is abstract. you can not instantiate it');
     }
}

// file: BackupToDisk.php
require_once 'MyBackupAbstract.php';
class BackupToDisk extends MyBackupAbstract {
     protected $_savePath;

     // implement other methods ...

     public function saveData() {
           // file_put_contents() is a built-in function to save a string into a file.
           file_put_contents($this->_savePath, $this->_data);
     }
}

// file: BackupToWebService.php
require_once 'MyBackupAbstract.php';
class BackupToWebService extends MyBackupAbstract {
     protected $_webService;
     // implement other methods ...

     public function saveData() {
           // suppose sendData() is implemented in the class
           $this->sendData($this->_data);
     }
}

now in your application, you might use it like this:

// file: saveMyData.php
// some code to populate $myData
$backupSolutions = array( new BackupToDisk('/tmp/backup') , new BackupToWebService('webserviceURL') );
foreach ( $backupSolutions as $bs ) {
    $bs->setData($myData);
    $bs->saveData();
}

you are right, PHP is not strong typed language, we never mentioned that any of your $backupSolutions would be a 'MyBackupAbstract' or 'MyBackupInterface', but that would not stop us from having the nature of polymorphism which is different functionality over using the same methods.