Finding the right structure for my application

Question

I have three different types of XML files (structure) which I would like to import into a database.

Every hour a cronjob calls my import.php with a specific XML file type as a parameter.

The import script includes a bootstrap.php (AutoLoader, Setup Doctrine DB Connection) and puts all files matching the name convention of this type in an array and calls a static method for this class.

Simplified code (import.php):

<?php
require_once("bootstrap.php");

function getFiles($pattern)
{
    $fileList = NULL;
    foreach( glob('xml/*'.$pattern.'.xml') as $filename )
    {
        $fileList[] = $filename;
    }

    return $fileList;
}

switch($xmlType)
{
    case "TypeA":
    TypeA::importFeed(getFiles($xmlType));
    break;

case "TypeB":
    TypeB::importFeed(getFiles($xmlType));
    break;

case "TypeC":
    TypeC::importFeed(getFiles($xmlType));
    break;
}

Currently, the classes (TypeA, TypeB, TypeC) contain no other method except importFeed.

Inside importFeed, only 2 things are equal in each class:

1. Getting the entityManager (Doctrine) by calling $em = app::getEm();
2. Convert XML into SimpleXMLElement using my parser class $feedObj = Parser::xmlToObject($xmlFile);

Everything else in importFeed differs from class to class because of the different XML types. Only a few tasks repeating e.g. check if an entity already exists in the database.

My first thought was creating a Helper class for this and some other repeating tasks I also need outside the import-script in this application.

But I'm not sure if this helper class should be a normal, "static" or "singleton" class.

The helper-methods doesn't need a specific object instance so static-methods would a good choice. But in some methods I need access to the DB and I do not wont to call app::getEm(); in every method because I don't think this is a good/clean solution.

At this point I challenged my current application design and read a lot of articles about this. The point is the application is not large and it should not be so using a Framework like Symfony is completely exaggerated - nonetheless I want a good solution.

All three classes (TypeA/B/C) have the same function that looks like this:

public static function importFeed($xmlFiles)
{
   $em = \App::getEm();
   foreach($xmlFiles as $xmlFile)
   {
      try
      {
         $feedObj = Parser::xmlToObject($xmlFile);
         ...import xml data to database - differns ...
      }
      catch(\Exception $e)
      {
         ....
      }
   }
}

Only the "..." area differs a lot because of the different XML structure but this part isn't really important for the question. In short: A Doctrine entity is created and many setAttributeX methods are called and in the end $em->flush().

My feeling tells me that it is not right to have three classes with only static methods to import XML files, but I can't find a better solution.

Answer 1

I would go somewhere in the lines of the following code:

abstract class ObjectImporter {

    protected $em;

    public function __construct($em) {
        $this->em = $em;
    }

    abstract public function import($object);
}

class TypeAImporter extends ObjectParser {

    public function __construct($em) {
        parent::__construct($em);
    }

    public function import($object) {
        #do your import magic
    }
}

class XmlImporter {

    private $importer;

    public function __construct($importer) {
        $this->importer = $importer;
    }

    public function import($files) {
        foreach ( $files as $file ) {
            $obj = Parser::xmlToObject($file);
            $this->importer->import($obj);
        }
    }
}

switch ( $xmlType ) {

    case 'TypeA':
        $importer = new XmlImporter(new TypeAImporter(\App::getEm()));
    break;
}

$importer->import($files);

Some notes: the code is not ideal (names aren't that good imo) and I don't like the Parser::xmlToObject method. The Parser should be injected into the XmlImporter class aswel. This way its easier tested and you can also very easily change the xml Parser.

I hope the code is of any use.