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Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:22:42 -0700
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] LSB forward_static_call()
From: stas@zend.com (Stanislav Malyshev)

Hi!

> why would anyone need that?

To use function that does use static without dependence on in which 
context if was called (or, explaining it other way, when your chain of 
inheritance serves multiple purposes):

class ActiveRecord {
	static function getRow($condition) {
		$table = new Table(get_called_class());
		return $table->find($condition);
	}
}

class Users extends ActiveRecord {
}

class DepartmentUsers extends Users {
	static function find($user) {
		if(self::user_in_department($user)) {
			return parent::getRow("user=$user");
		}
		return false;
	}
}

$user = DepartmentUsers::find("bob");

Now in this case if your way is implemented, ActiveRecord would try to 
find table for DepartmentUsers, which probably does not exist. You would 
have to name Users by name there to do what this code wants to do, which 
leads us back to "why we have parent:: at all" argument.

> "parent" is related to inheritance and it is logical, that it retains
> call-chain.

It is "logical" if you look at it with the narrow point of view of what 
you need for your particular application. However, there are other use 
cases. Automatic forwarding may become very awkward if you have multiple 
levels of inheritance not all of them used for the same thing.
-- 
Stanislav Malyshev, Zend Software Architect
stas@zend.com   http://www.zend.com/
(408)253-8829   MSN: stas@zend.com