Question

Is there a magic method that when a certain method is called from an object, that a magic method is called first. Kinda like the __call method, but this only gets triggered when the method isn’t found.

So in my case i’d like something like this:

class MyClass
{
    public function __startMethod ( $method, $args )
    {
        // a method just got called, so  this is called first
        echo ' [start] ';
    }

    public function helloWorld ( )
    {
        echo ' [Hello] ';
    }
}

$obj = new MyClass();
$obj->helloWorld();

//Output:
[start] [Hello] 

Does something like this exist in PHP??

Answer 1

There isn’t a direct way to do this but it looks to me like your trying to implement a form of Aspect Oriented programming. There are several ways of achieving this in PHP, one would be to set up your class something like the following:

class MyClass
{
    public function __startMethod ( $method, $args )
    {
        // a method just got called, so  this is called first
        echo ' [start] ';
    }

    public function _helloWorld ( )
    {
        echo ' [Hello] ';
    }

    public function __call($method, $args)
    {
        _startMethod($method, $args);
        $actualMethod = '_'.$method;
        call_user_func_array(array($this, $actualMethod), $args);
    }
}

$obj = new MyClass();
$obj->helloWorld();

Look up other ways of implementing AOP in PHP to see what works best for you (I’ll see if I can find a link somewhere).

EDIT: here’s a document for you http://www.liacs.nl/assets/Bachelorscripties/07-MFAPouw.pdf