Object Oriented Programming is the full name of OOP. In the object-oriented programming paradigm (OOPs), classes and objects are used to arrange all of the code. It implies that creating classes and objects in PHP is the process of programming. It enables programmers to create scalable and reliable online applications. In this article, we will learn about PHP OOPs Concept which includes classes, objects, inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism.
PHP is a server-side scripting language, mainly used for web development but also used as a general-purpose programming language. Object-Oriented Programming (PHP OOPs), is a type of programming language principle, that helps in building complex, reusable web applications.
Procedural programming is about writing procedures or functions that perform operations on the data, while object-oriented programming is about creating objects that contain both data and functions.
Advantage of OOPs
Object-oriented programming has several advantages over procedural programming:
- OOP is faster and easier to execute.
- OOP provides a clear structure for the programs.
- OOP helps to keep the PHP code DRY “Don’t Repeat Yourself”, and makes the code easier to maintain, modify and debug.
- OOP makes it possible to create full reusable applications with less code and shorter development time.
Don’t Repeat Yourself
The “Don’t Repeat Yourself” (DRY) principle is about reducing the repetition of code. You should extract out the codes that are common for the application, and place them at a single place and reuse them instead of repeating it.
Classes and objects are the two main aspects of object-oriented programming.
Object
An object is a basic unit of an object-oriented programming language. It is any real-world thing that has properties and actions. In other words, an entity that has state and behavior is known as object. Here, state represents properties and behavior represents actions or functionality.
For Example
book, pen, pencil, TV, fridge, washing machine, mobile phone, etc.
Objects, consists of states or attributes (called data members) and behavior (called methods).
Classes
A class is a collection of objects of similar types. In other way, we can say that objects are variables of the type class. Once a class has been defined, we can any create number of objects belonging to that class. Classes are user defined data type and behave like the built-in types of a programming language.
For example,
Mango, Apple, Orange are member of a class Fruit.
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In OOPs, there are four basic features:
- Encapsulation
- Abstraction
- Inheritance
- Polymorphism
Encapsulation
The process of binding data and corresponding methods (behavior) together into a single unit is called encapsulation in OOPs. In other words, encapsulation is a programming technique that binds the class members (variables and methods) together and prevents them from being accessed by other classes. We can keep variables and methods safes from outside interference and misuse.
For example,
When you enter into your email accounts, such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, or Rediff Mail, many internal activities are going place in the backend over which you have no control. When you enter your password for logging, it is encrypted and confirmed before you are granted access to your account. You have no control over how the password is confirmed. As a result, it protects our account from being exploited.
Polymorphism
Polymorphism is make from two greek words “poly” + “morphs”, Where “poly” means many & ‘morphs” means forms / types. Polymorphism is a object oriented programming feature that allows us to perform a single action in different ways. It is a process of representing one form in multiple forms / types.
For example,
Assume that when you are in class, you behave like a student, when you are in the market, you behave like a client, and when you are at home, you behave like a son or daughter. In this case, one individual is exhibiting many behaviors.
Abstraction
Abstraction means displaying only essential information and hiding the details. Data abstraction refers to providing only essential information about the data to the outside world, hiding the background details or implementation.
For example,
Consider a real life example of a man driving a car. The man only knows that pressing the accelerators will increase the speed of car or applying brakes will stop the car but he does not know about how on pressing accelerator the speed is actually increasing, he does not know about the inner mechanism of the car or the implementation of accelerator, brakes etc in the car.
Inheritance
Inheritance is the procedure in which one class inherits the attributes and methods of another class. The class whose properties and methods are inherited is known as the Parent class. And the class that inherits the properties from the parent class is the Child class.
The interesting thing is, along with the inherited properties and methods, a child class can have its own properties and methods. Inheritance is important in programming due to code re-usability.
For example,
if you live with your parents, then the father will be one base class, and you (as a child) will be the derived class. So we can inherit many things such as last name, address line, city, and state from the parent class.
OOP is supported by PHP, which enables programmers to write more modular, reusable, and maintainable code. Developers may better manage complicated applications and write higher-quality code by comprehending and applying concepts like inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation, and classes. PHP developers must be able to embrace OOP concepts because doing so improves the development process and conforms to contemporary programming standards.