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Asked: 2026-05-16T11:59:53+00:00

I was wondering what is better or more accepted when coding in PHP. I

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I was wondering what is better or more accepted when coding in PHP. I was taught, in Java, that class methods to get and set variables should be prefixed with “get” and “set”. What I want to know, though, is should I use these prefixes on regular PHP functions.

For example, to retrieve a username from a session variable I would either have
getUsername()
or
username()

What are the advantages and best practices. I know that using “get” is more mnemonic but it’s rather redundant (especially for a personal project that I don’t expect to be having other people read) but for the sake of good practice I would like to get it right.

While I’m at it, what is the proper naming convention for variables? Underscore-separated or camel-case? I’ve looked around and I’ve seen a mix of both. WordPress tends to use underscores in their function names but a lot of other sites say camel-case is best.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I personally try to stay away from getters/setters. I prefer to use the magic methods so then I can do $foo->myVar without needing to explicitly call a function (I think it makes the code more readable).

    With that said, there are circumstances where I use explicit getters and setters (Basically in situations where the result would be ambiguous using the variables directly. Like if I map the magic methods to an internal array and have other member variables that need accessing). In those circumstances, I use $foo->getMyVar() as the function signature.

    IMHO, $foo->myVar() makes sense if you know it’s a variable. But what happens if you see $foo->show(). Does that mean to perform the show action? Or does that mean get the current setting for the show variable?

    I always try to name all methods with something that identifies what they do. $foo->var() doesn’t give any indication to what’s going on. But $foo->showVar() does (At least moreso).

    As for naming convention, it’s all about who you read. I prefer camel-case. But there’s nothing wrong with underscores. Pick one, and stick with it. Consistency is more important than the choice itself…

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