(Project) Refactoring of ServicesObject

1 Aim of Project

Services\Object is at the very base of the object hierarchy of ILIAS. It relies havely on inheritance, has seen a few, never really finalized, attempts at refactoring and modernization, that have left their traces, has been used as a dump yard for function with no home and has never been clearly delimited in its functionality. Thus it is the aim of this project:

• To clean-up the code of `Services\Object`, remove static functions, remove duplicate implementation of functionality, centralize the use of the ILIAS-Dependency-Injection-Container.
• Remove all classes containing a numeral '2' in their name, i.e. `ilObject2` and `ilObject2GUI`.
• Remove `ilObjectListGUI` and restructure its functionality.
• Finalize the already introduced `Services\Object\Properties`-Infrastructure and remove `ilObjectServiceSettingsGUI`.
• Improving the coverage of `Services\Object` with Unit-Tests.

These are just the first steps to get a clearer picture. As I see it right now, the final goal should be to remove inheritance completely from Services\Object .

On a more abstract level the goals of this project are:

• To make Services\Object and by extensions ILIAS more secure.
• To make the code of Services\Object and by extensions ILIAS less interdependent and to make its dependencies clearer.
• To make the code of Services\Object and by extensions ILIAS easier to understand.
• To make the code of Services\Object and by extensions ILIAS easier to maintain.

2 Involved Maintainers and Stakeholders

• Implementation will be done by Kergomard, Stephan [skergomard], but will most probably affect code in many, if not all, components. I will try to work through Pull-Requests, but any help is always welcome.

3 Timeline

As quickly as funding and collaboration/coordination with other maintainers allow, as slowely as needed.

4 Related Feature Requests and Status

This is first and foremost a refactoring. Features might be linked to it. The table shows features and potential features with a probable link to this project.

5 Further Results

It is hoped to unlock further potential for improvement e.g. in the command-flow and in RBAC by these improvements, but this is for a next step.

6 Additional Information

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7 General Discussion