The mentioned filesystem analogy fails at an important point:
Namespace resolution *only* works at declaration time. The compiler fixates all namespace/class references as absolute paths, like creating absolute symlinks.
You can't expect relative symlinks, which should be evaluated during access -> during PHP runtime.
In other words, namespaces are evaluated like __CLASS__ or self:: at parse-time. What's *not* happening, is the pendant for late static binding like static:: which resolves to the current class at runtime.
So you can't do the following:
namespace Alpha;
class Helper {
public static $Value = "ALPHA";
}
class Base {
public static function Write() {
echo Helper::$Value;
}
}
namespace Beta;
class Helper extends \Alpha\Helper {
public static $Value = 'BETA';
}
class Base extends \Alpha\Base {}
\Beta\Base::Write(); // should write "BETA" as this is the executing namespace context at runtime.
If you copy the write() function into \Beta\Base it works as expected.
