This morning, I was wondering about how to extend a singleton class such that you could retrieve the new class when retrieving the singleton later. In particular, Zend_Controller_Front is a singleton, but what if I want to extend it later? A number of plugins in the Zend Framework, particularly view helpers and routing functionality, make use of the singleton; would I need to alter all of these later so I could make use of the new subclass?

For instance, try the following code:

class My_Controller_Front extends Zend_Controller_Front
{}

$front = My_Controller_Front::getInstance();

You'll get an instance of Zend_Controller_Front. But if you do the following:

class My_Controller_Front extends Zend_Controller_Front
{
    protected static $_instance;

    public static function getInstance()
    {
        if (null === self::$_instance) {
            self::$_instance = new self();
        }

        return self::$_instance;
    }
}

$front = My_Controller_Front::getInstance();

You'll now get an instance of My_Controller_Front. However, since $_instance is private in Zend_Controller_Front, calling Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance() will still return a Zend_Controller_Front instance — not good.

However, if I redefine Zend_Controller_Front::$_instance as protected, and have the following:

class My_Controller_Front extends Zend_Controller_Front
{
    public static function getInstance()
    {
        if (null === self::$_instance) {

            self::$_instance = new self();
        }

        return self::$_instance;
    }
}

$front = My_Controller_Front::getInstance();

Then the any time I call getInstance() on either My_Controller_Front or Zend_Controller_Front, I get a My_Controller_Front instance!

So, the takeaway is: if you think a singleton object could ever benefit from extension, define the static property holding the instance as protected, and then, in any extending class, override the method retrieving the instance.