On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Ilia Alshanetsky wrote:
> Derick Rethans wrote:
> > Problems:
> > 1. There is no way to document the 'virtual' properties with any of the
> > existing
> > documentation tools (such as phpdoc and doxygen)
>
> Rather then adding abstract properties, why not simply document the possible
> values inside the doc comments ala:
> /**
> * @var abstract int Contains all X
> */
That would work, if __set and __get were also called for declared
properties... but they don't do that so you need some keyword - or break
BC.
> > 2. There is no way how the magic methods know if a specific 'virtual'
> > property
> > exists or not as those properties are not declared usually - unless you
> > define an array with property names as a class constant (which is not
> > allowed either).
>
> That's the whole concept behind the feature, if the values were known you may
> as well use clearly declared property and method names.
True, unless you want to force all property access to go through a
setter/getter for all declared properties for checks. This is also
useful for catching typoes:
<?php
error_reporting(4095);
class foo {
public $foo;
}
$obj = new foo;
$obj->fo = 42;
?>
does not throw any notice now for BC reasons.
> > 3. There is no way for the magic methods to return a meaningfull
> > error when a property doesn't "exist". Of course it is possible
> > to throw an error with "trigger_error" or "throw" in case a
> > property doesn't "exist" in a specific class, but the file and
> > line numbers would not match the actually get/set action.
> > debug_backtrace() can be used to retrieve the correct file and
> > line, but as you have to do this for every class where you want
> > to use setters and getters *and* you have to implement your own
> > error message rendering function this is not really a suitable
> > option either.
>
> How about adding a 3rd optional argument to __get and __set which would be an
> array of acceptable values for the "name" parameter? If there is a mismatch a
> standard warning message will be raised if this parameter was supplied.
How does the engine know which list is allowed? The engine is calling
the __set and __get methods, not users. The whole idea of using a
keyword here is to provide the engine with such a list.
Derick
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