What are design patterns in PHP?

Design patterns are recurring solutions to common problems in software design.

The recommended major principles of programming

It is recommend to acknowledge the following principles before starting with design patterns. Design patterns and OOP in general won’t make sense without strictly following these principles.

• K.I.S.S.
• D.R.Y.
• Principle of Parsimony
• Separation of Concerns
• Single Responsibility Principle

Types of design patterns

According to the Gang of Four book we can categorize design patterns into three main categories:

Creational design patterns

• Abstract Factory
• Builder
• Prototype
• Singleton

Structural design patterns

• Adapter
• Bridge
• Composite
• Decorator
• Facade
• Flyweight
• Proxy

Behavioral design patterns

• Chain of responsibility
• Command
• Intepreter
• Iterator
• Mediator
• Memento
• Observer
• State
• Strategy
• Template method
• Visitor

Other design patterns

Other design patterns that are important to know for complex applications:

• Dependency injection
• Lazy loading
• Mock object
• Null object
• Object pool
• Servant
• Type tunnel

See also

• DesignPatternsPHP - Sample code for several design patterns in PHP.
• Design Patterns eBook