Hi!
In PHP 5.3 snaps, it appears that magic methods __isset, __unset, __get,
__set must have a public visibility or the engine will trigger a
warning. Why is this? It works as expected in 5.x branches.
I think it doesn't actually work as expected - because as far as I can
see, visibility is ignored on these methods. Consider this code:
class Foo {
private function __get($name) {
return 42;
}
}
$z = new Foo();
echo $z->bar;
On 5.2, it happily prints 42, even though you should not have access to
__get from outside the class, if it were true "private". Having
"private" there actually is somewhat misleading - while it looks like
internal API and thus can be changed by the class developer at will or
dropped altogether, it is actually a public API which is exposed to the
client.
I am not sure why this should be enforced as it should be up to the
developer as to which methods in the API should be exposed for direct
invocation.
I don't think magic methods are meant to be directly invoked. That's why
they are magic ;) In any case, since these methods are invoked in
"magic" way anyway, regardless of visibility, putting non-public
visibility on them makes little sense and actually makes people think
they can not be invoked from outside of the class - while it is not the
case, they can. Thus, even if there was no warning, I'd recommend never
putting non-public visibility on them.
--
Stanislav Malyshev, Zend Software Architect
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.zend.com/
(408)253-8829 MSN: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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