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)
> 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).
> 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.
As far as introspection (points 1 and 2), would it be reasonable to
allow __get/__set to be called without any parameters in which case
they would be expected to optionally return an array or object
designating the properties that they support? I know that this is
somewhat magical but dynamic features are somewhat magical to begin
with -- which is part of their charm.
FWIW, it would be nice if there was a way for __get/__set to support
references.
Greetings.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com