PHP MySQL - Stilson.net

CHAPTER 6 • OBJECT-ORIENTED PHPwww.it-ebooks.infofor the property name by declaring two functions, getName() and setName(), respectively, andembedding the appropriate syntax within each. An example of this strategy is presented at theconclusion of this section.PHP version 5 and newer does offer some semblance of support for property overloading, done byoverloading the __set and __get methods. These methods are invoked if you attempt to reference amember variable that does not exist within the class definition. Properties can be used for a variety ofpurposes, such as to invoke an error message, or even to extend the class by actually creating newvariables on the fly. Both __get and __set are introduced in this section.Setting Properties with the __set() MethodThe mutator, or setter method, is responsible for both hiding property assignment implementation andvalidating class data before assigning it to a class property. Its prototype follows:boolean __set([string property_name],[mixed value_to_assign])It takes as input a property name and a corresponding value, returning TRUE if the method issuccessfully executed and FALSE otherwise. An example follows:class Employee{var $name;function __set($propName, $propValue){echo "Nonexistent variable: \$$propName!";}}$employee = new Employee ();$employee->name = "Mario";$employee->title = "Executive Chef";This results in the following output:Nonexistent variable: $title!You could use this method to actually extend the class with new properties, like this:class Employee{public $name;function __set($propName, $propValue){$this->$propName = $propValue;}}$employee = new Employee();142