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I am trying to create a model in Joomla that will display various information pertaining to a certain ID. When I create the function:

public function getItem ($id = null)
{
    if ($this->_item === null)
    {
        $this->_item = false;

        if (empty($id))
        {
            $id = $this->getState('player.id');
        }
        
    }

    $db    = Factory::getDbo();
    $query = $db->getQuery(true);
    $query = "SELECT name FROM #__baseball_teams WHERE id = $id";
    $db->setQuery($query);
    $this->_item = $db->loadObject()->name; 
    
    return $this->_item;
}

But when I change the query results from:

$this->_item = $db->loadObject()->name;

to

$this->_item->team = $db->loadObject()->name;

I keep getting errors such as Attempt to assign property "team" on bool

Or if I try changing things around, I get Attempt to assign string "team" on null, etc.

When I run a print_r, the data is there and a var_dump shows as strings, but I just have no idea why I cannot assign an additional -> without getting errors?

1 Answer 1

3

Well, your code is saying that $this->_item might be null (a non-object) -- if it is, you are overwriting it to be false (again, a non-object). Then, after grabbing your database results, you are trying to assign a property to $this->_item as if it was an object, but you cannot assign a property to a non-object. Perhaps you want to convert a null $this->_item to be an empty object so that you can assign properties to it.

Also, you are creating a query object with:
$query = $db->getQuery(true);

Then you are overwriting that object with a literal string with:
$query = "SELECT name FROM #__baseball_teams WHERE id = $id";

Instead, let's implement a prepared statement with query building helper methods in J4.

Untested suggestion:

public function getItem ($id = null): object
{
    if (!is_object($this->_item))
    {
        $this->_item = (object) [];

        if (!$id)
        {
            $id = $this->getState('player.id');
        }
        
        $db    = JFactory::getDbo();
        $query = $db->getQuery(true);
        $query->select($db->quoteName('name'))
              ->from($db->quoteName('#__baseball_teams'))
              ->where($db->quoteName('id') . ' = :id')
              ->bind(':id', $id);
        $db->setQuery($query);
        $this->_item->name = $db->loadObject()->name; 
    }
    
    return $this->_item;
}

From PHP7.4, use the null coalescing assignment operator to replace the if (!$id) { ... } condition block.

$id ??= $this->getState('player.id');
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  • As usual, you knocked it out of the park. Thanks for all you do mickmack.
    – Brandon
    Apr 29, 2022 at 15:38

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