Question

I’m coming from Objective-C, where object oriented programming is just a dream. (at least for me)

I have an issue with this in PHP. I’m trying to make a Model-Class to save my database entries. It’s looking like this:

class Model {

    public function __set($name, $value)
    {
        $methodName = "set" . ucfirst($name);

        if (method_exists($this, $methodName)) {
            $methodName($value);
        } else {
            print("Setter method does not exists");
        }
    }

};

I’d like to subclass this and make a class User.

class User extends Model {
    private $userID;

    public function userID() {
        return $this->userID;
    }

    public function setUserID($theUserID) {
        $this->userID = $theUserID;
    }

};

When I call $user->__set("userID", "12345"); I get the following exception:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function setUserID() in Model.class.php

The $user object of course is a User object. Why can’t I call methods from a superclass?

Answer 1

if (method_exists($this, $methodName)) {
    $methodName($value);
}

you are checking existence of a method in object (method_exists($this, $methodName)) and than calling function, not this object method, should be: $this->$methodName($value);