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Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2017 08:08:48 +0100
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Subject: OBJECT_OPERATOR vs. DOUBLE_COLON
From: sebastian@php.net (Sebastian Bergmann)

Is it intentional that the DOUBLE_COLON operator can be used on a 
variable that contains a reference to an object?

<?php
class C
{
     public function m()
     {
         print '*';
     }
}

$c = new C;
$c::m();

Until yesterday I thought that only the OBJECT_OPERATOR (->) can be used 
on a variable that contains an object. https://3v4l.org/59Xap proved me 
wrong.

As the deprecation / strict standards notices suggest, though, $c::m() 
does not invoke the method m() on the object referenced by $c. It 
invokes the method statically on C (the class of the object referenced 
by $c): https://3v4l.org/19taB

I think that using :: on a variable that contains an object should not 
"fall back" to a static access on the object's class. Instead the 
runtime should error out.

What do you think?