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Asked: 2026-05-11T03:05:19+00:00

There was an interesting question in a practice test that I did not understand

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There was an interesting question in a practice test that I did not understand the answer to. What is the output of the following code:

<?php class Foo {     public $name = 'Andrew';      public function getName() {         echo $this->name;     } }  class Bar extends Foo {     public $name = 'John';      public function getName() {         Foo::getName();     } }  $a = new Bar; $a->getName(); ?>

Initially, I thought this was produce an error because static methods can not reference $this (atleast in PHP5). I tested this myself and it actually outputs John.

I added Foo::getName(); at the end of the script and did get the error I was expecting. So, what changes when you call a static method from within a class that extends the class you’re calling from?

Would anyone mind explaining in detail exactly what is going on here?

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1 Answer

  1. $this to the object in whose context the method was called. So: $this is $a->getName() is $a. $this in $fooInstance->getName() would be $fooInstance. In the case that $this is set (in an object $a’s method call) and we call a static method, $this remains assigned to $a.

    Seems like quite a lot of confusion could come out of using this feature. 🙂

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