Question

Is it possible to get the visibility of methods and properties inside a class in php?

I want to be able to do something like this:

function __call($method, $args)
{
    if(is_callable(array($this,$method))
    {
        if(get_visibility(array($this,$method)) == 'private')
            //dosomething
        elseif(get_visibility(array($this,$method)) == 'protected')
            //dosomething
        else
            //dosomething
    } 
} 

Answer 1

You might want to consider using PHP’s Reflection API for this. However, I should also ask you why you want to do this, because Reflection usually only gets used in situations that are a bit hacky to begin with. It is possible though, so here goes:

<?php

class Foo {
    /**
     *
     * @var ReflectionClass
     */
    protected $reflection;
    protected function bar( ) {

    }

    private function baz( ) {

    }

    public function __call( $method, $args ) {
        if( ( $reflMethod = $this->method( $method ) ) !== false ) {
            if( $reflMethod->isPrivate( ) ) {
                echo "That's private.<br />\n";
            }
            elseif( $reflMethod->isProtected( ) ) {
                echo "That's protected.<br />\n";
            }
        }
    }

    protected function method( $name ) {
        if( !isset( $this->methods[$name] ) ) {
            if( $this->reflect( )->hasMethod( $name ) ) {
                $this->methods[$name] = $this->reflect( )->getMethod( $name );
            }
            else {
                $this->methods[$name] = false;
            }
        }
        return $this->methods[$name];
    }

    protected function reflect( ) {
        if( !isset( $this->reflection ) ) {
            $this->reflection = new ReflectionClass( $this );
        }
        return $this->reflection;
    }
}

$foo = new Foo( );
$foo->baz( );
$foo->bar( );