Question

I have a code problem which stems from the fact that I am using certain libraries of code I cannot change.

I use the following code to pass execution of any undefined methods to another class, and it works fine but it seems like a waste doubling up.

Any suggestions?

Basically I want to know if it’s possible to pass an unknown number of parameters to a method (without using call_user_func_array(), just in case they need to be passed by reference). I am not asking how to use func_get_args(), rather the reverse.

Or should I just allow for a few more arguments in the first logic path (the list() code)?

class Foo {
    __construct() {
        $this->external = new ClassThatIHaveNoControlOver();
    }

    function bar($name) {
        return 'Hi '.$name;
    }

    function __call($method, $arguments) {
        if (count($arguments) < 3) {
            // call_user_func_array won't pass by reference, as required by
            // ClassThatIHaveNoControlOver->foobar(), so calling the function
            // directly for up to 2 arguments, as I know that foobar() will only
            // take 2 arguments
            list($first, $second) = $arguments + Array(null, null);
            return $this->external->$method($first, $second);
        } else {
            return call_user_func_array(array($this->external, $method), $arguments);
        }
    }
}

$foo = new Foo();

$firstName = 'Bob';
$lastName = 'Brown';
echo $foo->bar($firstName); // returns Hi Bob as expected
echo $foo->foobar($firstName, $lastName); // returns whatever
        // ClassThatIHaveNoControlOver()->foobar() is meant to return

EDIT
Just to clarify, I know I can use this method to rejig the parameters as references, but that would mean passing everything as a reference, even if the method didn’t require it – something I was trying to avoid, but seems unlikely at the moment.

Answer 1

As commented in the thread question post’s comments this is an example and not necessarily (likely) best practice.

//Some vars
$foo = "shoe";
$bar = "bucket";

//Array of references
$arr = Array(&$foo, &$bar);

//Show that changing variable value affects array content
$foo = "water";
echo $arr[0];

//Sample function
function fooBar($a)
{
    $a[0] = "fire";
}
//Call sample function
call_user_func("fooBar",$arr);

//Show that function changes both array contents and variable value by reference
echo $arr[0];
echo $foo;

Expanding a bit on the discussion, again not the most industry standard approach but it’ll do the job.

function pushRefOnArray(&$arr, &$var, $key = false)
{
    if(isset($key))
        $arr[$key] = &$var;
    else
        $arr[] = &$var;
}

Essentially you can dynamically build your array and call pushRefToArray() any time you need to pass an item to be passed as reference rather than by value.