Is there a use-case for singletons with database access in PHP?

Who needs singletons in PHP?

Notice that almost all of the objections to singletons come from technical standpoints - but they are also VERY limited in their scope. Especially for PHP. First, I will list some of the reasons for using singletons, and then I will analyze the objections to usage of singletons. First, people who need them:

- People who are coding a large framework/codebase, which will be used in many different environments, will have to work with previously existing, different frameworks/codebases, with the necessity of implementing many different, changing, even whimsical requests from clients/bosses/management/unit leaders do.

See, the singleton pattern is self inclusive. When done, a singleton class is rigid across any code you include it in, and it acts exactly like how you created its methods and variables. And it is always the same object in a given request. Since it cannot be created twice to be two different objects, you know what a singleton object is at any given point in a code - even if the singleton is inserted to two, three different, old, even spaghetti codebases. Therefore, it makes it easier in terms of development purposes - even if there are many people working in that project, when you see a singleton being initialized in one point in any given codebase, you know what it is, what it does, how it does, and the state it is in. If it was the traditional class, you would need to keep track of where was that object first created, what methods were invoked in it until that point in the code, and its particular state. But, drop a singleton there, and if you dropped proper debugging and information methods and tracking into the singleton while coding it, you know exactly what it is. So therefore, it makes it easier for people who have to work with differing codebases, with the necessity of integrating code which was done earlier with different philosophies, or done by people who you have no contact with. (that is, vendor-project-company-whatever is there no more, no support nothing).

- People who need to work with third-party APIs, services and websites.

If you look closer, this is not too different than the earlier case - third-party APIs, services, websites, are just like external, isolated codebases over which you have NO control. Anything can happen. So, with a singleton session/user class, you can manage ANY kind of session/authorization implementation from third-party providers like OpenID, Facebook, Twitter and many more - and you can do these ALL at the same time from the SAME singleton object - which is easily accessible, in a known state at any given point in whatever code you plug it into. You can even create multiple sessions to multiple different, third-party APIs/services for the SAME user in your own website/application, and do whatever you want to do with them.

Of course, all of this also can be tone with traditional methods by using normal classes and objects - the catch here is, singleton is tidier, neater and therefore because of that manageable/testable easier compared to traditional class/object usage in such situations.

- People who need to do rapid development

The global-like behavior of singletons make it easier to build any kind of code with a framework which has a collection of singletons to build on, because once you construct your singleton classes well, the established, mature and set methods will be easily available and usable anywhere, anytime, in a consistent fashion. It takes some time to mature your classes, but after that, they are rock solid and consistent, and useful. You can have as many methods in a singleton doing whatever you want, and, though this may increase the memory footprint of the object, it brings much more savings in time required for rapid development - a method you are not using in one given instance of an application can be used in another integrated one, and you can just slap a new feature which client/boss/project manager asks just by a few modifications.

You get the idea. Now lets move on to the objections to singletons and the unholy crusade against something that is useful:

- Foremost objection is that it makes testing harder.

And really, it does to some extent, even if it can be easily mitigated by taking proper precautions and coding debugging routines into your singletons WITH the realization that you will be debugging a singleton. But see, this isnt too different than ANY other coding philosophy/method/pattern that is out there - it's just that, singletons are relatively new and not widespread, so the current testing methods are ending up comparably incompatible with them. But that is not different in any aspect of programming languages - different styles require different approaches.

One point this objection falls flat in that, it ignores the fact that the reasons applications developed is not for 'testing', and testing is not the only phase/process that goes into an application development. Applications are developed for production use. And as I explained in the 'who needs singletons' section, singletons can cut a GREAT deal from the complexity of having to make a code work WITH and INSIDE many different codebases/applications/third-party services. The time which may be lost in testing, is time gained in development and deployment. This is especially useful in this era of third-party authentication/application/integration - Facebook, Twitter, OpenID, many more and who knows what's next.

Though it is understandable - programmers work in very different circumstances depending on their career. And for people who work in relatively big companies with defined departments tending different, defined software/applications in a comfortable fashion and without the impending doom of budget cuts/layoffs and the accompanying need to do a LOT of stuff with a lot of different stuff in a cheap/fast/reliable fashion, singletons may not seem so necessary. And it may even be nuisance/impediment to what they ALREADY have.

But for those who needs to work in the dirty trenches of 'agile' development, having to implement many different requests (sometimes unreasonable) from their client/manager/project, singletons are a saving grace due to reasons explained earlier.

- Another objection is that its memory footprint is higher

Because a new singleton will exist for each request from each client, this MAY be an objection for PHP. With badly constructed and used singletons, the memory footprint of an application can be higher if many users are served by the application at any given point.

Though, this is valid for ANY kind of approach you can take while coding things. The questions which should be asked are, are the methods, data which are held and processed by these singletons unnecessary? For, if they ARE necessary across many of the requests application is getting, then even if you don't use singletons, those methods and data WILL be present in your application in some form or another through the code. So, it all becomes a question of how much memory will you be saving, when you initialize a traditional class object 1/3 into the code processing, and destroy it 3/4 into it.

See, when put this way, the question becomes quite irrelevant - there should not be unnecessary methods, data held in objects in your code ANYway - regardless of you use singletons or not. So, this objection to singletons becomes really hilarious in that, it ASSUMES that there will be unnecessary methods, data in the objects created from the classes you use.

- Some invalid objections like 'makes maintaining multiple database connnections impossible/harder'

I can't even begin to comprehend this objection, when all one needs to maintain multiple database connections, multiple database selections, multiple database queries, multiple result sets in a given singleton is just keeping them in variables/arrays in the singleton as long as they are needed. This can be as simple as keeping them in arrays, though you can invent whatever method you want to use to effect that. But let's examine the simplest case, use of variables and arrays in a given singleton:

Imagine the below is inside a given database singleton:

$this->connections = array(); (wrong syntax, I just typed it like this to give you the picture - the proper declaration of the variable is public $connections = array(); and its usage is $this->connections['connectionkey'] naturally )

You can set up, and keep multiple connections at any given time in an array in this fashion. And same goes for queries, result sets and so forth.

$this->query(QUERYSTRING,'queryname',$this->connections['particulrconnection']);

Which can just do a query to a selected database with a selected connection, and just store in your

$this->results

array with the key 'queryname'. Of course, you will need to have your query method coded for this - which is trivial to do.

This enables you to maintain a virtually infinite number of (as much as the resource limits allow of course) different database connections and result sets as much as you need them. And they are available to ANY piece of code in any given point in any given codebase into which this singleton class has been instantiated.

OF COURSE, you would naturally need to free the result sets, and connections when not needed - but that goes without saying, and it's not specific to singletons or any other coding method/style/concept.

At this point, you can see how you can maintain multiple connections/states to third-party applications or services in the same singleton. Not so different.

Long story short, in the end, singleton patterns are just another method/style/philosophy to program with, and they are as useful as ANY other when they are used in the correct place, in the correct fashion. Which is not different from anything.

You will notice that in most of the articles in which singletons are bashed, you will also see references to 'globals' being 'evil'.

Let's face it - ANYthing that is not used properly, abused, misused, IS evil. That is not limited to any language, any coding concept, any method. Whenever you see someone issuing blanket statements like 'X is evil', run away from that article. Chances are very high that it's the product of a limited viewpoint - even if the viewpoint is the result of years of experience in something particular - which generally ends up being the result of working too much in a given style/method - typical intellectual conservatism.

Endless examples can be given for that, ranging from 'globals are evil' to 'iframes are evil'. Back around 10 years ago, even proposing the use of an iframe in any given application was heresy. Then comes Facebook, iframes everywhere, and look what has happened - iframes are not so evil anymore.

There are still people who stubbornly insist that they are 'evil' - and sometimes for good reason too - but, as you can see, there is a need, iframes fill that need and work well, and therefore the entire world just moves on.

The foremost asset of a programmer/coder/software engineer is a free, open and flexible mind.

Okay, I wondered over that one for a while when I first started my career. Implemented it different ways and came up with two reasons to choose not to use static classes, but they are pretty big ones.

One is that you will find that very often something that you are absolutely sure that you'll never have more than one instance of, you eventually have a second. You may end up with a second monitor, a second database, a second server--whatever.

When this happens, if you have used a static class you're in for a much worse refactor than if you had used a singleton. A singleton is an iffy pattern in itself, but it converts fairly easily to an intelligent factory pattern--can even be converted to use dependency injection without too much trouble. For instance, if your singleton is gotten through getInstance(), you can pretty easily change that to getInstance(databaseName) and allow for multiple databases--no other code changes.

The second issue is testing (And honestly, this is the same as the first issue). Sometimes you want to replace your database with a mock database. In effect this is a second instance of the database object. This is much harder to do with static classes than it is with a singleton, you only have to mock out the getInstance() method, not every single method in a static class (which in some languages can be very difficult).

It really comes down to habits--and when people say "Globals" are bad, they have very good reasons to say so, but it may not always be obvious until you've hit the problem yourself.

The best thing you can do is ask (like you did) then make a choice and observe the ramifications of your decision. Having the knowledge to interpret your code's evolution over time is much more important than doing it right in the first place.

Singletons have very little - if not to say no - use in PHP.

In languages where objects live in shared memory, Singletons can be used to keep memory usage low. Instead of creating two objects, you reference an existing instance from the globally shared application memory. In PHP there is no such application memory. A Singleton created in one Request lives for exactly that request. A Singleton created in another Request done at the same time is still a completely different instance. Thus, one of the two main purposes of a Singleton is not applicable here.

In addition, many of the objects that can conceptually exist only once in your application do not necessarily require a language mechanism to enforce this. If you need only one instance, then don't instantiate another. It's only when you may have no other instance, e.g. when kittens die when you create a second instance, that you might have a valid Use Case for a Singleton.

The other purpose would be to have a global access point to an instance within the same Request. While this might sound desirable, it really isnt, because it creates coupling to the global scope (like any globals and statics). This makes Unit-Testing harder and your application in general less maintainable. There is ways to mitigate this, but in general, if you need to have the same instance in many classes, use Dependency Injection.

See my slides for Singletons in PHP - Why they are bad and how you can eliminate them from your applications for additional information.

Even Erich Gamma, one of the Singleton pattern's inventors, doubts this pattern nowadays:

"I'm in favor of dropping Singleton. Its use is almost always a design smell"

Further reading

• How is testing the registry pattern or singleton hard in PHP?
• What are the disadvantages of using a PHP database class as a singleton?
• Database abstraction class design using PHP PDO
• Would singleton be a good design pattern for a microblogging site?
• Modifying a class to encapsulate instead of inherit
• How to access an object from another class?
• Why Singletons have no use in PHP
• The Clean Code Talks - Singletons and Global State

If, after the above, you still need help deciding: