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Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 21:29:51 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Re: Property Overloading RFC
From: jayboots@yahoo.com (boots)

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.

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