Question

I have a class that I would like to return true when method_exists() etc is called on it so that I can process it via __call().

I stumbled upon this link that talks about the removal of the behavior and __call()
https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=32429

Hopefully that makes sense. Thanks.

This is for a comment that I was not clear enough.

class MyClass {
  public function __call($method, $args) {
    if($method === 'something') {
      // do something
    }
  }
}

Then somewhere else there is

$my_class = new MyClass();
if(method_exists($my_class, 'something')) {
  // do something
  // But does not because method exists returns false
  // I would like it to return true if possible
}

Is there something complicated about that I’m not understanding?

Answer 1

method_exists will not detect undefined-methods which the __call magic handles, because the undefined method you pass it actually does not exist. It would be considered a bug if it did, as linked in your question.

The only way to do this (without a PECL extension like runkit or modifying the PHP source), is to use some namespace black magic to override the behavior of method_exists:

namespace Foo;

function method_exists($object, $method) {
    return \method_exists($object, '__call') ?: 
           \method_exists($object, $method);
}

class Bar {
    public function __call($n, $a) { }
}
class Baz { }

var_dump(method_exists('Foo\Baz', 'hello')); // false
var_dump(method_exists('Foo\Bar', 'hello')); // true

I wouldn’t recommend it, but hey, you asked for it.