This is a fact that in PHP you can only have single inheritance. That means a class can inherit from only one other class. For example if a class needs to inherit more than one methods from different classes in order to prevent duplication of the code, it can’t extend multiple classes.

It is not possible in versions < PHP 5.4, but in PHP 5.4 a new feature was added known as Traits and is used effectively in Laravel.

I have created a Traits folder in my app/Http in Laravel project with a Trait called ActivityLog.php. Let’s take a look at very simple example how to implement Traits:

ActivityLog.php

 $message,
            'object_class' = get_class($object),
            'user_id' => Auth::user()->id
        ]);
    }
}

Implementation of trait in our models:

Product.php

Stock.php

How to access trait implemented in Models?

ProductController.php

create($payload);
		$product->storeLog('product is created', $product);
	}
		
}

On the other hand, how to implement trait in Controller instead of Model:

StockController.php

update($payload);
		$this->storeLog('product is updated', $product);
	}

}

Get Gist of code examples here.

Quite simple, isn’t it. I never used this feature of PHP before I started to code in Laravel. Really a useful feature to reduce code duplication.