Hooks

Hook is a mechanism for adding callbacks. The core features of Hook sub-system (explained in detail here http://agile-core.readthedocs.io/en/develop/hook.html) include:

  • ability to define “spots” in PHP code, such as “beforeLoad”.
  • ability to add callbacks to be executed when PHP goes over the spot.
  • prioritization of callbacks
  • ability to pass arguments to callbacks
  • ability to collect response from callbacks
  • ability to break hooks (will stop any other hook execution)

Model implements hook trait and defines various hooks which will allow you to execute code before or after various operations, such as save, load etc.

Model Operation Hooks

All of model operations (adding, updating, loading and deleting) have two hooks - one that executes before operation and another that executes after.

Those hooks are database-agnostic, so regardless where you save your model data, your beforeSave hook will be triggered.

If database has transaction support, then hooks will be executed while inside the same transaction:

  • begin transaction
  • beforeSave hook
  • actual save
  • reload (see Model::reloadAfterSave)
  • afterSave hook
  • commit transaction

In case of error:

  • do rollback
  • call onRollback hook

If your afterSave hook creates exception, then the entire operation will be rolled back.

Example with beforeSave

The next code snippet demonstrates a basic usage of a beforeSave hook. This one will update field values just before record is saved:

$m->onHook(Model::HOOK_BEFORE_SAVE, function (Model $m) {
    $m->set('name', strtoupper($m->get('name')));
    $m->set('surname', strtoupper($m->get('surname')));
});

$m->insert(['name' => 'John', 'surname' => 'Smith']);

// Will save into DB:  ['name' => 'JOHN', 'surname' => 'SMITH'];

Arguments

When you define a callback, then you’ll receive reference to model from all the hooks. It’s important that you use this argument instead of $this to perform operation, otherwise you can run into problems with cloned models.

Callbacks does non expect anything to be returned, but you can modify fields of the model.

Interrupting

You can also break all “before” hooks which will result in cancellation of the original action:

$m->breakHook(false);

If you break beforeSave, then the save operation will not take place, although model will assume the operation was successful.

You can also break beforeLoad hook which can be used to skip rows:

$model->onHook(Model::HOOK_AFTER_LOAD, function (Model $m) {
    if ($m->get('date') < $m->date_from) {
        $m->breakHook(false); // will not yield such data row
    }
    // otherwise yields data row
});

This will also prevent data from being loaded. If you return false from afterLoad hook, then record which we just loaded will be instantly unloaded. This can be helpful in some cases, although you should still use Model::addCondition where possible as it is much more efficient.

Insert/Update Hooks

Insert/Update are triggered from inside save() method but are based on current state of Model::isLoaded:

  • beforeInsert($m, &$data) (creating new records only)
  • afterInsert($m, $id)
  • beforeUpdate($m, &$data) (updating existing records only. Not executed if model is not dirty)
  • afterUpdate($m)

The $data argument will contain array of actual data (field => value) to be saved, which you can use to withdraw certain fields from actually being saved into the database (by unsetting it’s value).

Note that altering data via $m->set() does not work in beforeInsert and beforeUpdate hooks, only by altering $data.

afterInsert will receive either $id of new record or null if model couldn’t provide ID field. Also, afterInsert is actually called before reloading is done (when Model::reloadAfterSave is set).

For some examples, see Soft Delete

beforeSave, afterSave Hook

A good place to hook is beforeSave as it will be fired when adding new records or modifying existing ones:

  • beforeSave($m) (saving existing or new records. Not executed if model is not dirty)
  • afterSave($m, $isUpdate) (same as above, $isUpdate is boolean true if it was update and false otherwise)

You might consider “save” to be a higher level hook, as beforeSave is called pretty early on during saving the record and afterSave is called at the very end of save.

You may actually drop validation exception inside save, insert or update hooks:

$m->onHook(Model::HOOK_BEFORE_SAVE, function (Model $m) {
    if ($m->get('name') === 'Yagi') {
        throw new \Atk4\Data\ValidationException(['name' => "We don't serve like you"]);
    }
});

Loading, Deleting

Those are relatively simple hooks:

  • beforeLoad($m, $id) ($m will be unloaded). Break for custom load or skip.
  • afterLoad($m). ($m will contain data). Break to unload and skip.

For the deletion it’s pretty similar:

  • beforeDelete($m, $id). Unload and Break to preserve record.
  • afterDelete($m, $id).

A good place to clean-up delete related records would be inside afterDelete, although if your database consistency requires those related records to be cleaned up first, use beforeDelete instead.

For some examples, see Soft Delete

Hook execution sequence

  • beforeSave
    • beforeInsert [only if insert] - beforeInsertQuery [sql only] (query) - afterInsertQuery (query, affectedRows)
    • beforeUpdate [only if update] - beforeUpdateQuery [sql only] (query) - afterUpdateQuery (query, affectedRows)
    • afterUpdate [only if existing record, model is reloaded]
    • afterInsert [only if new record, model not reloaded yet]
    • beforeUnload
    • afterUnload
  • afterSave (bool $isUpdate) [after insert or update, model is reloaded]

How to prevent actions

In some cases you want to prevent default actions from executing. Suppose you want to check ‘memcache’ before actually loading the record from the database. Here is how you can implement this functionality:

$m->onHook(Model::HOOK_BEFORE_LOAD, function (Model $m, $id) {
    $data = $m->getApp()->cacheFetch($m->table, $id);
    if ($data) {
        $dataRef = &$m->getDataRef();
        $dataRef = $data;
        $m->setId($id);

        $m->breakHook($m);
    }
});

$app property is injected through your $db object and is passed around to all the models. This hook, if successful, will prevent further execution of other beforeLoad hooks and by specifying argument as ‘false’ it will also prevent call to $persistence for actual loading of the data.

Similarly you can prevent deletion if you wish to implement soft-delete or stop insert/modify from occurring.

onRollback Hook

This hook is executed right after transaction fails and rollback is done. This can be used in various situations.

Save information into auditLog about failure:

$m->onHook(Model::HOOK_ROLLBACK, function (Model $m) {
$m->auditLog->registerFailure();

});

Upgrade schema:

use Atk4DataPersistenceSqlException as SqlException;

$m->onHook(Model::HOOK_ROLLBACK, function (Model $m, Throwable $exception) {
if ($exception instanceof SqlException) {
$m->schema->upgrade(); $m->breakHook(false); // exception will not be thrown

}

});

In first example we will register failure in audit log, but afterwards still throw exception. In second example we will upgrade model schema and will not throw exception at all because we break hook and return false boolean value.

Persistence Hooks

Persistence has a few spots which it actually executes through $model->hook(), so depending on where you save the data, there are some more hooks available.

PersistenceSql

Those hooks can be used to affect queries before they are executed. None of these are breakable:

  • beforeUpdateQuery($m, Query $query)
  • afterUpdateQuery($m, Query $query, int $affectedRows). Executed before retrieving data.
  • beforeInsertQUery($m, Query $query)
  • afterInsertQuery($m, Query $query, int $affectedRows). Executed before retrieving data.

The delete has only “before” hook:

  • beforeDeleteQuery($m, Query $query)

Finally for queries there is hook initSelectQuery($model, $query, $type). It can be used to enhance queries generated by “action” for:

  • “count”
  • “update”
  • “delete”
  • “select”
  • “field”
  • “fx” or “fx0”

Other Hooks: