I needed a PHP implementation of LINQ to parse some seemingly arbitrary SOAP API response objects by avoiding if(method_exists()) and if(is_array()) then foreach(){if(is_object){}}. So I thought I'd share my tiny introduction to PHPLinq.

$names = array("APPLE", "BIRD", "CAT", "DOG", "EGG", "FISH", "GOAT", "HAM", "ICE", "JAM", "KOALA", "LIZARD");
 
// Easy:
$resultsA = from('$name')
            ->in($names)
            ->where('$name => (strpos($name, "A") !== FALSE)')
            ->select('$name');
var_dump($resultsA);

$resultsB = from('$name')
            ->in($resultsA)
            ->concat(array("MARS"))
            ->select('$name');
var_dump($resultsB);

$resultsC = from('$name')
            ->in($resultsB)
            ->orderBy('$name => $name')
            ->reverse()
            ->select('$name');
var_dump($resultsC);

$resultsD = from('$name')
            ->in($resultsC)
            ->count();
var_dump($resultsD);

$resultsE = from('$name')
            ->in($resultsC)
            ->skip(1)
            ->take(2)
            ->select('$name');
var_dump($resultsE);
 
// Ooo, nice:
$names[] = "LIZARD";
$resultsF = from('$name')
            ->in($names)
            ->where('$name => (strpos($name, "A") !== FALSE)')
            ->ofType('string')
            ->distinct('$name => $name')
            ->orderBy('$name => $name')
            ->thenByDescending('$name => count($name)')
            ->select('new { "name" => $name }');
var_dump($resultsF);

$resultsG = from('$name')
            ->in($resultsF)
            ->where('$name => (strpos($name->name, "A") !== FALSE)')
            ->orderBy('$name => $name->name')
            ->first();
var_dump($resultsG);
 
$names2 = array("apple", "bird", "cat", "dog", "egg", "fish", "goat", "ham", "ice", "jam", "koala", "lizard");
$resultsH = from('$name')->in($names)
                         ->join('$name2')
                         ->in($names2)
                         ->on('$name, $name2 => (strcasecmp($name, $name2) == 0)')
                         ->select('$name = null, $name2 = null => $name." equal to ".$name2');
var_dump($resultsH);

What got in the way of actually using it, was the "installation" into my existing framework. Once I found the LinqToObjects Unit Tests things started to make more sense:

$phpLinq = Config::Get('PHPLinqIncludePath');

set_include_path(get_include_path().PATH_SEPARATOR.$phpLinq);
require_once 'PHPLinq/LinqToObjects.php';

My initial production test, didn't work because I had converted the original SOAP reply object into a multi-dimensional array for convenience. PHPLinq treated the first layer of my array as a list of objects, and any subsequent arrays seem to be discarded and only the first element in the "object" array was queried/processed. This was easy enough for me to solve by not converting the original object into an array O_o. I then tested for the existence of an array within the object, build a "where" query to only pull out the objects in that array that matched the user's criteria (new feature), and sorted the result before returning it (also new feature)... nice.

Labels: linq, php, query