PHP 5 introduces abstract classes and methods. Classes defined as abstract may not be instantiated, and any class that contains at least one abstract method must also be abstract. Methods defined as abstract simply declare the method's signature - they cannot define the implementation.
When inheriting from an abstract class, all methods marked abstract in the parent's class declaration must be defined by the child; additionally, these methods must be defined with the same (or a less restricted) visibility. For example, if the abstract method is defined as protected, the function implementation must be defined as either protected or public, but not private. Furthermore the signatures of the methods must match, i.e. the type hints and the number of required arguments must be the same. This also applies to constructors as of PHP 5.4. Before 5.4 constructor signatures could differ.
Example #1 Abstract class example
<?php
abstract class AbstractClass
{
// Force Extending class to define this method
abstract protected function getValue();
abstract protected function prefixValue($prefix);
// Common method
public function printOut() {
print $this->getValue() . "\n";
}
}
class ConcreteClass1 extends AbstractClass
{
protected function getValue() {
return "ConcreteClass1";
}
public function prefixValue($prefix) {
return "{$prefix}ConcreteClass1";
}
}
class ConcreteClass2 extends AbstractClass
{
public function getValue() {
return "ConcreteClass2";
}
public function prefixValue($prefix) {
return "{$prefix}ConcreteClass2";
}
}
$class1 = new ConcreteClass1;
$class1->printOut();
echo $class1->prefixValue('FOO_') ."\n";
$class2 = new ConcreteClass2;
$class2->printOut();
echo $class2->prefixValue('FOO_') ."\n";
?>
The above example will output:
ConcreteClass1 FOO_ConcreteClass1 ConcreteClass2 FOO_ConcreteClass2
Old code that has no user-defined classes or functions named 'abstract' should run without modifications.