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Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2010 12:18:50 -0600
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] RFC: C-sharp style property get/set syntax for PHP
From: larry@garfieldtech.com ("larry@garfieldtech.com")

On 11/29/10 8:30 AM, Ángel González wrote:

> What about allowing this syntax to attach the property to a variable?
>
> For instance:
>
> <?php
> class TimePeriod
> {
>      protected $seconds;
>      protected $minutes;
>      protected $hours;
>
>      public property Seconds read $seconds write setSeconds;
>      public property Minutes read $seconds write setMinutes;
>      public property Hours read $seconds write setHours;
>
>      public function setSeconds($seconds)
>      {
>          if ($seconds>= 0&&  $seconds<  60) $this->seconds = $seconds;
>      }
>
>      public function setMinutes($minutes)
>      {
>          if ($minutes>= 0&&  $minutes<  60) $this->minutes = $minutes;
>      }
>
>      public function setHours($hours)
>      {
>          if ($hours>= 0&&  $hours<  24) $this->hours = $hours;
>      }
>
> }
>
> We only want to perform checks on write, so instead of writing the trivial
> getters, the property is set to the variable itself. Child classes could
> reattach it to a function if needing more control.

Another advantage here would presumably be performance.  If there's no 
getter defined then the engine could simply map $foo->bar to the class 
member directly (which is really fast) and not to a method, so there's 
no added overhead there.  That still leaves the question of what happens 
with name collisions, though.

... and that makes me think that someone is sure to ask about runtime 
changes to the property structure sooner or later, as we keep asking 
about methods (and *sort of* have figured out with binding closures to 
objects, if that did actually get committed), so I'll go ahead and ask 
it now. :-)

--Larry Garfield