Understanding PHP 8 Trait Handling Refinements

The implementation of traits was first introduced in PHP version 5.4. Since that time, a continuous stream of refinements has been made. PHP 8 continues that trend by providing a means to clearly identify which methods are used when multiple traits have conflicting methods. Also, in addition to removing inconsistencies in visibility declarations, PHP 8 irons out problems in how traits handled (or did not handle!) abstract methods.

As a developer, having a complete mastery of the use of traits enables us to write code that is both more efficient and easier to maintain. Traits can help us avoid producing redundant code. They solve the problem of needing the same logic available across namespaces or across different class inheritance structures. The information presented enables us to make proper use of traits in code running under PHP 8.

First, let’s examine how conflicts between traits are resolved in PHP 8.

Resolving method conflicts between traits

Multiple traits can be used by simply listing the trait names separated by commas. A potential problem can arise, however, if two traits define the same method. To resolve such conflicts, PHP offers the as keyword. In PHP 7 and below, to avoid a conflict between two methods of the same name, we could simply rename one of the methods. The code to perform the renaming might appear as follows: