On Wed, Sep 4, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Micky Hulse <mickyhulse.li...@gmail.com>wrote:
> I want to have a "utility" class that contain utility methods which should > have the option of being called multiple times on a page. > ... > To put it another way, is there any reason why I would not want to use the > above code? The main problem caused by static methods is testability. Mocking or stubbing a static method requires using a PHP extension and ensuring that the original is reset whether the test passes or fails. As long as your utility methods don't perform actions you want to avoid during tests, this is fine. Good examples for a utility class are string-processing functions such as parsing and formatting, trimming and/or normalizing empty string to null, etc. You want tests to work against these methods directly since there's no need to avoid the work. You'll want to avoid static methods whenever you want to be able to fix the behavior (stubbing) to test scenarios in the class under test. An example is anything hitting a database or external service. In order to test that your downloader sends the correct warning email to the sysadmin when a REST call fails, you need to be able to force the REST call to fail. This is easy to do when you plug in an instance implementing the API because you can give it an implementation/mock that fails for all calls. I can't say if what you're thinking of will make a good utility class since the code you posted is fake. If you post some examples of methods you want to make static, we can give you pointers on which are good candidates and which are best left to instance methods. Peace, David
