Question

Ok, this is very unexpected and it annoys me. I have function called default() in all my classes. But, I can’t call it for some reason. I guess it’s because of ‘default:’ in switch statement (which I don’t use at all).

Is this really true that I can’t name my function default() in php or am I doing something wrong?

Here’s the error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_DEFAULT, expecting T_STRING in 
C:\Users\Jinxed\Desktop\WebTrgovina\app\c\Controller.c.php on line 8

And here’s the code in question:

<?php
abstract class Controller {
    protected $view;
    function __construct() {
    }
    abstract function default();
    function getView(){
        return $this->view;
    }
}

Code works fine when I rename default to something else, but this is annoying, is there any solution to have function named default()?

Answer 1

You cannot use a reserved word as a class function. You can, however, use __call:

<?php
abstract class Controller {

    public function _default($some, $args) {}

    public function __call($name, $arguments) {
        if ($name === 'default') {
            //return call_user_func_array(array($this, '_default'), $arguments); // has args
            return $this->_default(); // simpler
        }
    }
}

Which will permit you to do $foo->default(). A better idea though would be to not choose an implementation/api that relies upon using reserved words for method names.