3.1. Chain Of Responsibilities

3.1.1. Purpose

To build a chain of objects to handle a call in sequential order. If one object cannot handle a call, it delegates the call to the next in the chain and so forth.

3.1.2. Examples

  • logging framework, where each chain element decides autonomously what to do with a log message
  • a Spam filter
  • Caching: first object is an instance of e.g. a Memcached Interface, if that “misses” it delegates the call to the database interface

3.1.3. UML Diagram

Alt ChainOfResponsibility UML Diagram

3.1.4. Code

You can also find this code on GitHub

Handler.php

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<?php declare(strict_types=1);

namespace DesignPatterns\Behavioral\ChainOfResponsibilities;

use Psr\Http\Message\RequestInterface;

abstract class Handler
{
    public function __construct(private ?Handler $successor = null)
    {
    }

    /**
     * This approach by using a template method pattern ensures you that
     * each subclass will not forget to call the successor
     */
    final public function handle(RequestInterface $request): ?string
    {
        $processed = $this->processing($request);

        if ($processed === null && $this->successor !== null) {
            // the request has not been processed by this handler => see the next
            $processed = $this->successor->handle($request);
        }

        return $processed;
    }

    abstract protected function processing(RequestInterface $request): ?string;
}

Responsible/FastStorage.php

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<?php declare(strict_types=1);

namespace DesignPatterns\Behavioral\ChainOfResponsibilities\Responsible;

use DesignPatterns\Behavioral\ChainOfResponsibilities\Handler;
use Psr\Http\Message\RequestInterface;

class HttpInMemoryCacheHandler extends Handler
{
    public function __construct(private array $data, ?Handler $successor = null)
    {
        parent::__construct($successor);
    }

    protected function processing(RequestInterface $request): ?string
    {
        $key = sprintf(
            '%s?%s',
            $request->getUri()->getPath(),
            $request->getUri()->getQuery()
        );

        if ($request->getMethod() == 'GET' && isset($this->data[$key])) {
            return $this->data[$key];
        }

        return null;
    }
}

Responsible/SlowStorage.php

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<?php declare(strict_types=1);

namespace DesignPatterns\Behavioral\ChainOfResponsibilities\Responsible;

use DesignPatterns\Behavioral\ChainOfResponsibilities\Handler;
use Psr\Http\Message\RequestInterface;

class SlowDatabaseHandler extends Handler
{
    protected function processing(RequestInterface $request): ?string
    {
        // this is a mockup, in production code you would ask a slow (compared to in-memory) DB for the results

        return 'Hello World!';
    }
}

3.1.5. Test

Tests/ChainTest.php

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<?php declare(strict_types=1);

namespace DesignPatterns\Behavioral\ChainOfResponsibilities\Tests;

use DesignPatterns\Behavioral\ChainOfResponsibilities\Handler;
use DesignPatterns\Behavioral\ChainOfResponsibilities\Responsible\HttpInMemoryCacheHandler;
use DesignPatterns\Behavioral\ChainOfResponsibilities\Responsible\SlowDatabaseHandler;
use PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase;
use Psr\Http\Message\RequestInterface;
use Psr\Http\Message\UriInterface;

class ChainTest extends TestCase
{
    private Handler $chain;

    protected function setUp(): void
    {
        $this->chain = new HttpInMemoryCacheHandler(
            ['/foo/bar?index=1' => 'Hello In Memory!'],
            new SlowDatabaseHandler()
        );
    }

    public function testCanRequestKeyInFastStorage()
    {
        $uri = $this->createMock(UriInterface::class);
        $uri->method('getPath')->willReturn('/foo/bar');
        $uri->method('getQuery')->willReturn('index=1');

        $request = $this->createMock(RequestInterface::class);
        $request->method('getMethod')
            ->willReturn('GET');
        $request->method('getUri')->willReturn($uri);

        $this->assertSame('Hello In Memory!', $this->chain->handle($request));
    }

    public function testCanRequestKeyInSlowStorage()
    {
        $uri = $this->createMock(UriInterface::class);
        $uri->method('getPath')->willReturn('/foo/baz');
        $uri->method('getQuery')->willReturn('');

        $request = $this->createMock(RequestInterface::class);
        $request->method('getMethod')
            ->willReturn('GET');
        $request->method('getUri')->willReturn($uri);

        $this->assertSame('Hello World!', $this->chain->handle($request));
    }
}