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Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 16:33:32 -0500
To: Marcus Boerger <helly@php.net>
Cc: php internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Message-ID: <20060103213332.GG26280@desario.homelinux.net>
References: <20060103205728.GF26280@desario.homelinux.net> <1852411085.20060103220656@marcus-boerger.de>
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In-Reply-To: <1852411085.20060103220656@marcus-boerger.de>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] __call overload detection
From: andrew@plexpod.com (Andrew Yochum)

Hi Marcus,

On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 10:06:56PM +0100, Marcus Boerger wrote:
> Hello Andrew,
> 
>   right now you can use reflection.
> 
> marcus

The reflection APIs do not help I believe.  Consider that one may only
want __call to respond to a computable set of overloaded method names.
Right now, is_callable returns true for any requested method if __call
is implemented by the object.  Unless I have missed some magic that the
Reflection APIs can do, they don't apply here.

Consider the following:
    class a {
        var $callables = array('foo');
        function __call($name, $args) {
            if ($this->__is_callable($name)) return 'good call';
            else return 'bad call';
        }
        function __is_callable($name) {
            return in_array($name, $this->callables);
        }
    }

    $a = new a();
    print "is_callable: " . is_callable(array($a,'foo'),false, $callable) . " as $callable \n";
    // prints: is_callable: 1 as a::foo
    // OK
    print "is_callable: " . is_callable(array($a,'bar'),false, $callable) . " as $callable \n";
    // result: is_callable: 1 as a::bar
    // desired: is_callable: 0 as 
    // or some other similar behavior if __is_callable is implemented

If one were to implement a reflection-like method called __iscallable,
you could get this functionality, but couldn't count on other's code
using the same convention.  Another downside to doing it yourself is
that every call to a method must first check __is_callable - this could
be handled by the language upon a method call.  If I feel it would be a
good idea to implement this in the lanaguage for standardization and
simplicity.

Regards,
Andrew

-- 
Andrew Yochum
Plexpod
andrew@plexpod.com
718-360-0879