Service API

Service Implementation

These methods are related to the general functioning of services.

init

This method is expected to perform any necessary initialization for the service. Its return value is critical. It should return false if the service is not available for whatever reason. Otherwise it should return true.

Note that's it's not necessary to check for OS compatibility, as this will already have been done by \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\ExtensionManagementUtility::addService() when the service is registered.

Executables should be checked, though, if any.

The init() method is automatically called by \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\GeneralUtility::makeInstanceService() when requesting a service.

reset

When a service is requested by a call to \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\GeneralUtility::makeInstanceService(), the generated instance of the service class is kept in a registry ($GLOBALS['T3_VAR']['makeInstanceService']). When the same service is requested again during the same code run, a new instance is not created. Instead the stored instance is returned. At that point the reset() method is called.

This method can be used to clean up data that may have been set during the previous use of that instance.

__destruct

Clean up method. The base implementation calls on unlinkTempFiles() to delete all temporary files.

The little schema below summarizes the process of getting a service instance and when each of init() and reset() are called.

Getter Methods for Service Information

Most of the below methods are quite obvious, except for getServiceOption().

getServiceInfo

Returns the array containing the service's properties

getServiceKey

Returns the service's key

getServiceTitle

Returns the service's title

getServiceOption

This method is used to retrieve the value of a service option, as defined in the $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SVCONF'] array. It will take into account possible default values as described in the Service configuration chapter.

This method requires more explanation. Imagine your service has an option called "ignoreBozo". To retrieve it in a proper way, you should not access $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SVCONF'] directly, but use getServiceOption() instead. In its simplest form, it will look like this (inside your service's code):

EXT:some_extension/Classes/Services/SomeService.php

$ignoreBozo = $this->getServiceOption('ignoreBozo');

Copied!

This will retrieve the value of the "ignoreBozo" option for your specific service, if defined. If not, it will try to find a value in the default configuration. Additional call parameters can be added:

• the second parameter is a default value to be used if no value was found at all (including in the default configuration)
• the third parameter can be used to temporarily switch off the usage of the default configuration.

This allows for a lot of flexibility.

Error Handling

This set of methods handles the error reporting and manages the error queue. The error queue works as a stack. New errors are added on top of the previous ones. When an error is read from the queue it is the last one in that is taken (last in, first out). An error is actually a short array comprised of an error number and an error message.

The error queue exists only at run-time. It is not stored into session or any other form of persistence.

errorPush

Puts a new error on top of the queue stack.

errorPull

Removes the latest (topmost) error in the queue stack.

getLastError

Returns the error number from the latest error in the queue, or true if queue is empty.

getLastErrorMsg

Same as above, but returns the error message.

getErrorMsgArray

Returns an array with the error messages of all errors in the queue.

getLastErrorArray

Returns the latest error as an array (number and message).

resetErrors

Empties the error queue.

General Service Functions

checkExec

This method checks the availability of one or more executables on the server. A comma-separated list of executable names is provided as a parameter. The method returns true if all executables are available.

The method relies on \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Utility\CommandUtility::checkCommand() to find the executables, so it will search through the paths defined/allowed by the TYPO3 CMS configuration.

deactivateService

Internal method to temporarily deactivate a service at run-time, if it suddenly fails for some reason.

I/O Tools

A lot of early services were designed to handle files, like those used by the DAM. Hence the base service class provides a number of methods to simplify the service developer's life when it comes to read and write files. In particular it provides an easy way of creating and cleaning up temporary files.

checkInputFile

Checks if a file exists and is readable within the paths allowed by the TYPO3 CMS configuration.

readFile

Reads the content of a file and returns it as a string. Calls on checkInputFile() first.

writeFile

Writes a string to a file, if writable and within allowed paths. If no file name is provided, the data is written to a temporary file, as created by tempFile() below. The file path is returned.

tempFile

Creates a temporary file and keeps its name in an internal registry of temp files.

registerTempFile

Adds a given file name to the registry of temporary files.

unlinkTempFiles

Deletes all the registered temporary files.

I/O Input and I/O Output

These methods provide a standard way of defining or getting the content that needs to be processed – if this is the kind of operation that the service provides – and the processed output after that.

setInput

Sets the content (and optionally the type of content) to be processed.

setInputFile

Sets the input file from which to get the content (and optionally the type).

getInput

Gets the input to process. If the content is currently empty, tries to read it from the input file.

getInputFile

Gets the name of the input file, after putting it through checkInputFile() . If no file is defined, but some content is, the method writes the content to a temporary file and returns the path to that file.

setOutputFile

Sets the output file name.

getOutput

Gets the output content. If an output file name is defined, the content is gotten from that file.

getOutputFile

Gets the name of the output file. If such file is not defined, a temporary file is created with the output content and that file's path is returned.

Migration

Remove any usage of the class \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Service\AbstractService in your extension. In case you currently extend AbstractService for use in an authentication service, which might be the most common scenario, you can extend the \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Authentication\AbstractAuthenticationService instead.

In case you currently extend AbstractService for another kind of service, which is rather unlikely, you have to implement the necessary methods in your service class yourself. Please see Service Implementation for more details about the required methods. However, even better would be to completely migrate away from the Service API (look for GeneralUtility::makeInstanceService()), since the Core will deprecate these related methods in the future.