Question

Say I have a class like this:

class Person
{
    private $value;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->value = 'new';
    }

    public static function find( $ident )
    {
        $person = new Person();
        $person->value = 'old';

        return $person;
    }
}

How can I keep the constructor from firing, or diverting it in some way to not execute some of itself if I am calling from the static find function?

The context of my example is identical to that of my real code, except the real code has a perfect amount of overhead so long that only one of the functions is ever executed. (Many objects can exist at the same time, however if the static function calls the __construct method, then there is too much overhead and loading time).

Both need to have public accessors.

Answer 1

You can pass a boolean into your constructor to tell it whether it should execute or not

class Person
{
    private $value;

    public function __construct($exec)
    {
        if(!$exec)
            return;
        $this->value = 'new';
        echo $this->value;  //testing
    }

    public static function find( $ident )
    {
        $person = new Person(false);
        $person->value = 'old';

        return $person;
    }
}

//$p = new Person(true);
$p = Person::find(0);

---

update using static variable

class Person
{
    private $value;
    protected static $exec1 = true;

    public function __construct()
    {
        if(!self::$exec1)
            return;
        $this->value = 'new';
        echo $this->value;
    }

    public static function find( $ident )
    {
        self::$exec1 = false;
        $person = new Person();
        self::$exec1 = true;
        $person->value = 'old';

        return $person;
    }
}

$p = Person::find(0);