Question

I have a PHP class called “food”. The internal data structure of the class is an Array.

class Food
{


public $dataArray;// = array();
public $sidesArray;// = array();

public function __construct()
{
    $this->dataArray = array();
    $this->sidesArray = array();

    echo"Created new Food instance<br/>";

}

public function setName($food_Name)
{
    $this->dataArray["food_name"] = $food_Name;
}

public function getName()
{
    return $this->dataArray["food_name"];
}

When I call this method of the class :

$food_name = $foodItem->getName();

I get this exception:

Fatal error: Call to a member function getName() on a non-object......

However when I call this function on the object:

print_r($foodItem);

I get this output:

Array ( [0] => Food Object ( [dataArray] => Array ( [food_name] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => Tomato Soup ) [food_Cals] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => 200 ) [food_Desc] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => great ) [food_price] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => 2.00 ) [num_sides] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => 1 ) ) [sidesArray] => Array ( [0] => Side Object ( [dataArray:private] => Array ( [side_name] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => mashed potatoes ) [side_Cals] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( ) [side_Category] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => Sides ) [side_desc] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( ) [side_price] => SimpleXMLElement Object ( [0] => 2.00 ) ) ) ) ) ) 

My question is why is that method getName() not working?
How do I get the “name” out of the foodItem object.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

Looks like $foodItem is an array of Food objects.

You will need to loop over the array or reference specific items by index to use the class methods, eg

// loop
foreach ($foodItem as $food) {
    echo $food->getName();
}

// direct access
echo $foodItem[0]->getName();

Be careful as you will trigger an E_NOTICE “undefined index” error if attempting to call Food::getName() before a name has been set via Food::setName().

I’d be inclined to set the name in the constructor

public function __construct($name)
{
    $this->dataArray = array('food_name' => $name);

    // any other constructor tasks
}