Inter-module compatibility

Vendor acronyms and prefixes

Vendor Prefixes

A prefix and a vendor namespace should be used consistently, and they should be registered at OXID eSales to prevent use by others. Use your prefix for your:

database tables
additional fields
config parameters
language constants

Namespaces

Also, your namespace (with the namespace of your module) should be used inside all of your classes. An example from the PayPal module:

namespace OxidEsales\PayPalModule\Controller;

class OrderController extends OrderController_parent
{
    // ...

Extensions for existing methods

Parent calls

When writing extensions for methods that do variable assignments or execute other calls, be sure to add a parent call. This is an example from the oepaypal module class OrderController which is an extension for the shop’s class with the namespace \OxidEsales\Eshop\Application\Controller\OrderController.

/**
 * Returns PayPal user
 *
 * @return \OxidEsales\Eshop\Application\Model\User
 */
public function getUser()
{
    $user = parent::getUser();

    $userId = $this->getSession()->getVariable("oepaypal-userId");
    if ($this->isPayPal() && $userId) {
        $payPalUser = oxNew(\OxidEsales\Eshop\Application\Model\User::class);
        if ($payPalUser->load($userId)) {
            $user = $payPalUser;
        }
    }

    return $user;
}

Method visibility

Do not change the visibility of methods that are extended. Visibilities can be public, protected or private. If you want to extend an original method, do not change your new method’s visibility from protected to public or from private to protected.

Use oxNew()

For creating objects, always use the oxNew() function in order to have the module chain (and all of its methods) available:

$Article = oxNew('Article');