Services

Characteristica

  • Services MUST be used as objects, they are never static

  • A single service MUST consist of one class only

  • Services MUST be located in a Service/ directory and MUST end with Service, eg. Service/FoobarService.php

  • Service instances MAY hold state, but SHOULD be stateless

  • Services MAY use configuration, but SHOULD not

  • Services MAY have multiple entry points, but SHOULD have only one

  • Services SHOULD NOT be singletons

Rationale

A “service” in this context is meant as the relatively short-sighted process of putting a class into a Service/ subfolder and calling it a WhateverService. It does not have too much to do with the DDD Service context, which is broader. This section is just about which scope can be expected for classes residing in a Service folder within core extensions.

From this point of view, services in TYPO3 world are a relatively slim class construct that encapsulates a specific concern. It is too big for a small static method, it may hold state, but it is still just a relatively small scope. Each service consists typically of only a single class. A bigger construct with interfaces, multiple sub classes is not called a service anymore.

The above MAY and SHOULD mean that a single service MAY do a single one or two of them, but if for instance a service is relatively big, has many entry points, keeps state and depends on configuration, this is too much and is a sign it should be modeled in a different and more dedicated and more disjoint way.

The main risk with service classes is that they pile up to a conglomeration of helper stuff classes that are hanging around without good motivation. It is important that a service class should not be a bin for something that just does not fit to a different better place within the scope of a specific extension.

Good examples

  • \TYPO3\CMS\Extbase\Service\CacheService

    • Small and straight scope with useful helpers

    • It is a singleton, but that is feasible in this case

Bad examples

  • \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Service\AbstractService, TYPO3\CMS\Sv\AuthenticationService

    • Not modeled in a sane way, this should be within Core/Authentication

    • Far too complex, class abstraction and extending classes