With Extbase, accessing the extensions settings outside Controllers (e.g. in a Repository) requires some manual work which is always the same. I don’t know why Extbase doesn’t support us with helper functions, but anyway, let’s put this needed code where we can reuse it easily.

Being limited to PHP 5.3 until last month, my usual approach was to inherit the Repository from an Abstract class which contained a set of often used functions. This still works fine, but if you want these functions to be used in let’s say a Typo3 hook class, or a Scheduler task (where the Extbase support is even worse! Geez!), you probably end up writing a couple of Abstract classes which are more or less the same. Of course you can inherit the Abstract class from another abstract class … which again doesn’t work with Scheduler tasks, because they need to inherit from a base class anyways… nah…

Since we now use PHP 5.4 on our production servers (and yes, I am aware that 2014 is almost over), I felt urged to find out whether Traits can be used with Extbase. Surprisingly (working with Extbase and Typo3 is easier with a good amount of sarcasm) it was as easy as it should be! I tested it on Extbase 6.2, and the Autoloader loads the Trait without any hassle.

Here’s some example. First, the trait itself:

<?php

namespace Vendor\Myextension\Library;

trait Settings
{
    /**
     * The extensions name
     * @var string
     */
    protected $extensionName;

    /**
     * Typo3 Settings array
     * @var array
     */
    protected $settings;

    /**
     * @var \TYPO3\CMS\Extbase\Configuration\ConfigurationManagerInterface
     */
    protected $configurationManager;

    /**
     * @param \TYPO3\CMS\Extbase\Configuration\ConfigurationManagerInterface $configurationManager
     * @inject
     */
    public function injectConfigurationManager(\TYPO3\CMS\Extbase\Configuration\ConfigurationManagerInterface $configurationManager) {
        $this->configurationManager = $configurationManager;
    }

    /**
     * Getter for $extensionName
     * @return string
     */
    public function getExtensionName() {
        if ($this->extensionName === NULL) {
            $className = get_class($this);
            if (strpos($className, '\\') !== FALSE) {
                $classNameParts = explode('\\', $className, 4);
                // Skip vendor and product name for core classes
                if (strpos($className, 'TYPO3\\CMS\\') === 0) {
                    $this->extensionName = $classNameParts[2];
                } else {
                    $this->extensionName = $classNameParts[1];
                }
            } else {
                list(, $this->extensionName) = explode('_', $className);
            }
        }

        return $this->extensionName;
    }

    /**
     * Setter for $extensionName
     * @param string $extensionName
     * @return Settings
     */
    public function setExtensionName($extensionName) {
        $this->extensionName = $extensionName;
        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * Setter for $settings
     * @param array $settings
     * @return $this
     */
    public function setSettings($settings) {
        $this->settings = $settings;

        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * Getter for $settings
     * The settings are loaded from the configurationManager on demand only.
     * If this is called outside Extbase (i.e. from a system hook, or a scheduler task) you must use
     * \TYPO3\CMS\Extbase\Configuration\ConfigurationManagerInterface::CONFIGURATION_TYPE_FULL_TYPOSCRIPT
     * and fetch the extensions settings via the array structure, e.g.
     * $this->settings['plugin.']['yourextension.']['persistence.']['storagePid']
     * @param string $settingsType
     * @return array
     */
    public function getSettings($settingsType = \TYPO3\CMS\Extbase\Configuration\ConfigurationManagerInterface::CONFIGURATION_TYPE_SETTINGS) {
        if ($this->settings === NULL) {
            $this->settings = $this->configurationManager->getConfiguration(
                $settingsType, $this->getExtensionName()
            );
        }

        return $this->settings;
    }
}

No rocket science, but stuff you need all over again. I decided to use “Library” as namespace, but this doesn’t really matter.

So far, so easy. To include a trait, you only need to add the “use”-statement inside your class, e.g. in a repository:

<?php

namespace Vendor\Myextension\Domain\Repository;

class SomeSeriousStuff
{
    // Note the "use" statement within the class. This inserts our Trait class.
    use \Vendor\Myextension\Library\Settings;

    public function mySeriousFunction() {
        $settings = $this->getSettings();
        // ... do some serious things here with the settings
    }
}

This works really smooth, I think I will get used to Traits very soon.

Fun fact: shortly after finishing my Extension where I used Traits for the first time, I was asked for a PHP 5.3 compatible version. Fuuuuuu……