oop interface

@Sinnbeck no not in laravel in general give me an example that I will understand nd why we use interfaces ?

@ShamiCanCode same thing. Your method expects an interface. You can then pass any class that implements that interface.

In an app I manage we can export to pdf or PowerPoint. The method for creating it all just expects a class that implements the PresentationExport interface

public function export(PresentationExport $exporter)
{

} 

@Sinnbeck so whats the purpose?

@ShamiCanCode that no matter what class I get I can be absolutely sure they have implemented the needed methods.

@Sinnbeck so what's the point of interface if we have to use class?

@ShamiCanCode not sure how to answer that. Interfaces does not make sense without classes. Classes implements interfaces. That's the whole point

@Sinnbeck i know whole thing but still question is ..... WHY?

@ShamiCanCode not sure how else I can explain it. I gave a real world example. There are other examples of using it, but my real world example is a simple one

Maybe look at laravel excel for how it uses interfaces. It's another example of how they can be used. It asks you to implement an interface which forces you to implement the method on your export/import class

https://docs.laravel-excel.com/3.1/imports/concerns.html

@ShamiCanCode the answer is "enforcing a structure"

by using an interface, you would establish a structure for ALL the underlying classes. The reason? 5 years down the line, some new developer go in and had to make a new class, they will have the same structure.

You may ask: Can't that new developer just look at the code and replicate the structure without using an interface? The answer is yes, but it will take more time, and is more error-prone. If you use an interface, they are FORCED to use the same structure, with full IDE support, so why not?

for example, lets take a look at an interface to define classes that handle database connection:

interface DBConnect{
	abstract public function connect()
}

and then you have a class that implement that interface:

class LocalDBConnect implements DBConnect{
	public function connect(){
		//do something
	}
}

2 years down the line, you need to add a Cloud DB connection:

class CloudDBConnect implements DBConnect{
	//notice you MUST have a method called connect()
	public function connect(){
		//do something different
	}
}

if you dont have an interface to define the structure ( in this case: must have 1 method call connect()), someone can call the method access():

	public function access(){
		//do something different
	}

and all you code that use connect will break