Question

I have a class that uses __call():

public function __call($method, $args){
     $method = "_".$method;
     if (method_exists($this, $method)) {
        try {
            return $this->$method($args);
        }
        catch (Validation_exception $e) {
            $this->exceptions[] = $e->getMessage();
            return;
        }
     }
}

But that will return me an array even if I have a method that returns a string:

protected function _return_string(){
    return "string"; 
}

So if I do:
echo $myclass->return_string();
print_r( $myclass->return_string() );

It will output:
Array()
Array([0] => “string”)

Why does it return an array??

Answer 1

class myClass {
    protected function _return_string($arg){
        return is_array($arg) ? $arg[0] : $arg;
    }

    public function __call($method, $args){
        $method = "_".$method;
        if (method_exists($this, $method)) {
            try {
                return $this->$method($args); // $args passed as an array here
            }
            catch (Validation_exception $e) {
                $this->exceptions[] = $e->getMessage();
                return;
            }
         }
    }
}

$foo = new myClass();
echo $foo->__call('return_string','Hello'); // Prints "Hello" 
echo $foo->return_string(' World'); //Prints "World"

// output on screen “Hello World”

Note: return $this->$method($args) passed $args as an array.