Question

in C#, getters and setters can be defined and filled differently for each attribute (property) but in php it looks a common gateway for all the attributes. Is there is a way to define getters and setters for each properties like the code shown below in C#:

private string hello;
private string world;

public string Hello
{
    get{ return hello;}
    set{ hello = value + "this one is hello";
}

public string World
{
    get{return world;}
    set{world = value + "this one is world";
}

What I want is a similar way to define different getters and setters for some particular attributes.

Edit:

I know a way but they needs function calls like set_attr1($value){} and get_attr1(){} and declare private $attr1 but as you may see, it is not quite what I want. I want them invoked automatically when I reach $attr1

Thanks.

Answer 1

You could set a magic method with a switch case, but that won’t fix your issue at 100%, because the magic method will not get invoked unless the property does not exist or if its scope is not accessible from the caller:

class Foo {
   private $bar = 'hello';
   private $baz = 0;

   public function __set($var, $value) {
       switch ($var) {
           case 'bar':
               $this->$var .= $value;
               break;
           case 'baz':
               $this->$var += $value;
               break;
       }
   }

   public function hello() {
       $this->bar = 'world'; // __set is not called here
   }
}

$foo = new Foo;
$foo->bar = 'world';         // __set is called here

You can hack around this, by prepending your properties name with, say, an underscore. But this still feel very much like a hack:

class Foo {
   private $_bar = 'hello';
   private $_baz = 0;

   public function __set($var, $value) {
       $actual_var = "_$var";
       switch ($var) {
           case 'bar':
               $this->$actual_var .= $value;
               break;
           case 'baz':
               $this->$actual_var += $value;
               break;
           default:
               $this->$var = $value;
       }
   }

   public function hello() {
       $this->bar = 'world'; // __set is called here too
   }
}

In conclusion, I think you’re better off defining indiviual setters/getters method for each property to remove any ambiguity whatsoever:

class Foo {
    private $bar = 'hello';

    public function setBar($value) {
        $this->bar .= $value;
    }
}