PHP method return this, effect on performance?

Question

How does it affect performance by making sure that all my setters return $this? To allow for chain calls similar to jQuery coding standards.

E.g:

public function setEnabled(){
    $_enabled = true;
    return $this;
}

I found this other question with no reference to the performance side, surley there is a negative

Would you rather re reference the object for every setMethod? This spares code, who cares it's impact, it has to be better than clogging up the calling script. — Emery King, Mar 03 '13 at 18:03
i did some benchmarks on it, returning $this instead of returning void seems to be about 17 nanoseconds slower on my i7-6700 in power-saving mode on battery on a laptop with PHP 7.1.16, benchmark code can be found here: https://github.com/Znote/POTCP/commit/10cd616ffb8257216a8ede8fbe5ce625899536b9 (i would post this as an answer but it's closed..) — hanshenrik, Apr 19 '19 at 21:14

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 03 '13 at 18:03

3

No significant performance impact. Objects are not cloned.

answered Mar 03 '13 at 18:03

Ven

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Worth noting it's considered a bad practice for other reasons. (Chaining methods leads to bad readability). – Madara's Ghost Mar 03 '13 at 18:27
3

Disagreed. I appreciate it. – Ven Mar 03 '13 at 18:56

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 03 '13 at 18:03

0

Objects are passed by reference unless you specifically clone them (in php 5 anyway). I don't see any performance impact by doing this.

answered Mar 03 '13 at 18:03

datasage

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 03 '13 at 18:03

0

NO the another question answer everything, in your code sample your Function will always true, and could be chain if you want

answered Mar 03 '13 at 18:03

Lucas M. Oliveira

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 03 '13 at 18:07

0

PHP return null; is the same as return; which is the same as not returning anything at all. Either way, something is being returned, it may as well be the objects reference to itself.

answered Mar 03 '13 at 18:07

Emery King

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and yet, in my tests, `return $this;` is about 17 nanoseconds slower than `return;` in php 7.1.16 on i7-6700 - benchmarking code: https://github.com/Znote/POTCP/commit/10cd616ffb8257216a8ede8fbe5ce625899536b9 – hanshenrik Apr 19 '19 at 21:15

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 03 '13 at 18:08

Most every line of code comes with a performance hit. But is that not the point of writing that line of code

Your question is very vague and depends on a few factors. The size object being returned, how it is being received, and the calculations made on $this before it is being returned.

Usually there is no issues with returning $this but it is all a question of judgement. If $this contains a huge data array, you can figure it will use more memory and processing time than in your example.

It's just a reference though, not the object itself. It doesn't matter the size until it's used. Which is irrelevant. — Emery King, Mar 03 '13 at 18:10

PHP method return this, effect on performance?

5 Answers5