Question:

For example, we have the class:

class foo
{
var $bar = 1;
}

I wanted to know if there is a way to execute something if I call it like this:

$foo = new foo;
$foo->bar();

Answer:

The __call magic method does this.

Look:

class Foo {

      protected $bar;

      public function __call($method, $arguments) {
           return isset($this->$method) ? $this->$method : null;
      }
 }

What is __call for?

The __call method will perform an action when you call a method of a class that is not declared or is inaccessible ( protected and private , for example).

It is always necessary to declare two parameters for this function: The first is the name of the method you tried to invoke, and the second, the arguments passed (these are stored in an array ).

recommendations

I would recommend that you maintain a standard for utilizing such "magical features". For example, you always detect if the method you tried to call starts with the word get .

Look:

class Foo {

      protected $bar = 'bar';

      public function __call($method, $arguments) {

            if (substr($method, 0, 3) == 'get')
            {
                $prop = strtolower(substr($method, 3));

                return $this->$prop;
            }


            throw new \BadMethodCallException("Method $method is not defined");

      }
 }

So when you access the getBar method, you would get the value of $bar .

  $foo = new Foo;

  $foo->getBar(); // Retorna 'bar'

Note : If we had declared the public method bar in the Foo class, the return value would be different, as the method exists (and is a public method), so __call would not be invoked.

  public function bar() {

      return 'Valor do método, não da propriedade';

  }

addition

It is highly recommended not to use the var keyword, since PHP version 5 introduced the public , protected and private visibility keywords when declaring the visibility of a method.