PHP OOP - Traits

In PHP Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), traits are a mechanism for code reuse in single inheritance languages such as PHP.
Traits allow developers to reuse methods, and to a lesser extent, properties, in several independent classes.
They are similar to classes, but unlike classes, traits cannot be instantiated on their own.

Here's how you define and use traits in PHP:

Example

// Define a trait
trait MyTrait {
    // Method within the trait
    public function traitMethod() {
        echo "Trait method executed.\n";
    }
    
    // Another method within the trait
    public function anotherTraitMethod() {
        echo "Another trait method executed.\n";
    }
}

// Class using the trait
class MyClass {
    // Use the trait in the class
    use MyTrait;
    
    // Other methods and properties of MyClass
}

// Create an object of MyClass
$obj = new MyClass();

// Call methods from the trait
$obj->traitMethod();
$obj->anotherTraitMethod();

You can click on above box to edit the code and run again.

Output

In this example:

MyTrait is defined using the trait keyword.
It contains methods traitMethod() and anotherTraitMethod().
MyClass uses the use keyword to include MyTrait in its definition.
MyClass can now access methods defined within MyTrait as if they were defined directly within MyClass.
Traits can be used in multiple classes, allowing code reuse across different class hierarchies.

Traits are particularly useful when you want to share methods among multiple classes, but you can't use inheritance because PHP only supports single inheritance. They provide a way to horizontally share methods among unrelated classes. However, it's important to use traits judiciously to avoid code duplication and maintainability issues.