One interesting use of the __get function is property / function colaescence, using the same name for a property and a function.
Example:
<?php
class prop_fun {
private $prop = 123;
public function __get( $property ) {
if( property_exists( $this, $property ) ){
return $this-> $property;
}
throw new Exception( "no such property $property." );
}
public function prop() {
return 456;
}
}
$o = new prop_fun();
echo $o-> prop . '<br>' . PHP_EOL;
echo $o-> prop() . '<br>' . PHP_EOL;
?>
This will output 123 and 456. This does look like a funy cludge but I used it of a class containing a date type property and function allowing me to write
<?php
class date_class {
private $the_date;
public function __get( $property ) {
if( property_exists( $this, $property ) ){
return $this-> $property;
}
throw new Exception( "no such property $property." );
}
public function the_date( $datetime ) {
return strtotime( $datetime, $this-> the_date );
}
public function __construct() {
$this-> the_date = time();
}
}
$date_object = new date_class();
$today = $date_object-> the_date;
$nextyear = $date_object-> the_date("+1 year");
echo date( "d/m/Y", $today) . '<br>';
echo date( "d/m/Y", $nextyear );
?>
Which I like because its self documenting properties. I used this in a utility class for user input.
