Question

Possible Duplicate:
PHP method chaining?

In a lot of APIs I’ve worked with, I’ve seen this sort of thing:

$object->method()->anotherMethod();

From the tutorials on OOP that I’ve read, this is how classes are written,

<?php
class myClass {
    public method() {
       // do something
    }
}
?>

When should this be used, and how can it be done? Apologies, but I am new to OOP.

Answer 1

If your method returns $this, you will be able to use the above style ($object->method()->anotherMethod()). This can be done only in cases where your method is not expected to return something else, e.g. a method named like getSomething() is expected to return Something, but if you have a method that has no relevant value to return, you can just return $this, allowing method call chains.