Question

I have a class:

class Module {

    public function a(...params...) {
        //do something, doesn't return anything
    }

    public function b(...params...) {
        //do something, doesn't return anything
    }

    public function c(...params...) {
        //do something, doesn't return anything
    }

    public function getAsArray() {
        return get_object_vars($this);
    }

}

Is it possible to modify module class, so methods a(),b() and c() return $this? I don’t want to write it in every function. getAsArray() should return what it does. Module will be base for other classes and I want this mechanism to be implemented in base, but use it in inheriting classes.

I want to use it like this:

$module = new Module();
$module->a()->b()->c()->getAsArray();

Answer 1

If you don’t want to add a single line returning $this to each of your methods, you can do something like:

class Module {

    private function _a($value) {
        echo 'Executing method a<br />';
        $this->aVar = $value;
    }

    private function _b($value) {
        echo 'Executing method b<br />';
        $this->bVar = $value;
    }

    private function _c($value) {
        echo 'Executing method c<br />';
        $this->cVar = $value;
    }

    public function getAsArray() {
        return get_object_vars($this);
    }

    public function __call($name, $arguments) {
        echo 'Calling method '.$name.'<br />';
        call_user_func_array(array($this,'_'.$name),$arguments);
        return $this;
    }
}


$x = new Module();

var_dump($x->a(1)->b(2)->c(3)->getAsArray());

though it’s really more work for you to do than the single line change that you seem to dislike.

Note that you can’t incorporate immediate method calls into a new Module line in any way. This does actually require you to store the instantiated object in a variable, and then chain the method calls against that variable.