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Xoops has two abstract classes to aid in the class development XoopsObject and XoopsObjectHandler
The idea behind them is that a class can extend XoopsObject to describe an object, whereas extending XoopsObjectHandler will give more like an interface for handling the objects, i.e. get, insert, delete and create objects. E.g. for a ThisObject class, you can make a ThisObjectHandler to get, insert, delete and create ThisObject objects.
The advantages of extending these two classes are for XoopsObject:
Automatic access (inheritance) to methods, easing the assignment/retrieval of variables Automatic access to methods for cleaning/sanitizing variables
and for XoopsObjectHandler:
A place to put all those functions working with more than one object (e.g. a "getAllObjects()" function) These functions will become easier to track down in the file system (since they are connected to a class, it is just a matter of finding the class and not going through the function files in the module/core/PHP native in search for it.
An additional idea is that the XoopsObjectHandler-extending class should be a Data Access Object, i.e. the class, which handles database calls - and leaving the XoopsObject-extending class to have object-describing methods, such as methods which handle and manipulate variables, calling methods on the handler for retrieving, updating and inserting data in the database.
NOTE: A change in the class factory method is expected in Xoops 2.2, so the advice from the core devs is that you should not go to a great length to change existing modules to follow this architecture - however, I hope that this guide makes it easier to understand the core classes, which use this architecture.
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