Tactical PHP : Execute around method

Let’s say we want to model a file with a class:

• It must be opened before reading, writing, or doing anything to it.
• It must be closed afterwards, lest bad things happen.

Of couse, we could simply expose open() and close() public methods, but that’s delegating the burden of calling the right thing at the right time to the user, which is rarely a good idea.

Alternatively we could write composed, specialized methods like readWhileOpen(), writeWhileOpen(), but we would make heavy assumptions on how the object can be used and potentially introduce redudant openings or closings.

Instead, we can expose a single method that takes a callable as an argument. The method only ensures the proper opening and closing of the file, without any external code having to care, by calling open() and close() around an arbitrary action:

class File
{
    public function openDuring(callable $action)
    {
        $this->open();
        try {
            $action();
        } finally {
            // ensure the file is always closed 
            $this->close();
        }
    }
    private function open()
    { /** ... **/ }
    private function close()
    { /** ... **/ }
}

$file = new File();
$file->openDuring(function() {
    // $file will always be open here
});

Tradeoffs

While this pattern produces very flexible code, it also makes it harder to analyse statically. Nobody can read the openDuring() method and understand everything it can do : only the constraints it enforces.
To limit the negative effect on code readablity, we should pay special attention to the naming of such a method.