Red-headed?  Widow’s peak?  Blue eyes?

Naw, not those kind of traits!  As of PHP 5.4, the implementation of Traits has been added.  In terms of object oriented programming, we know that the single-level inheritence restriction of PHP can be, well, limiting.  However, this will allow for horizontal code-reuse by creation reusable sub-classes that can be implemented into your main class with precedence being given to the trait.

For example:

 

class Framework
{
   public function doSayHello()
   {
      echo "Hello, ";
   }
}

trait SayHello
{
   public function doSayHello()
   {
      parent::doSayHello();
      echo "world!";
   }
}

class HelloWorld extends Framework
{
   use SayHello;
}

$myHello = new HelloWorld();
$myHello->doSayHello();

This would print, “Hello, world!”

If you’re new to PHP, this may seem a bit abstract or complex, but once you’ve worked with object-oriented code and experience first hand how unwieldy your classes can get, you’ll better understand their usefulness.

Happy PHP’ing!