PHP: Properties

Properties

Class member variables are called "properties". You may also see them referred to using other terms such as "attributes" or "fields", but for the purposes of this reference we will use "properties". They are defined by using one of the keywords public, protected, or private, followed by a normal variable declaration. This declaration may include an initialization, but this initialization must be a constant value--that is, it must be able to be evaluated at compile time and must not depend on run-time information in order to be evaluated.

See Visibility for more information on the meanings of public, protected, and private.

Note:
In order to maintain backward compatibility with PHP 4, PHP 5 will still accept the use of the keyword var in property declarations instead of (or in addition to) public, protected, or private. However, var is no longer required. In versions of PHP from 5.0 to 5.1.3, the use of var was considered deprecated and would issue an E_STRICT warning, but since PHP 5.1.3 it is no longer deprecated and does not issue the warning.

If you declare a property using var instead of one of public, protected, or private, then PHP 5 will treat the property as if it had been declared as public.

Within class methods non-static properties may be accessed by using -> (Object Operator): $this->property (where property is the name of the property). Static properties are accessed by using the :: (Double Colon): self::$property. See Static Keyword for more information on the difference between static and non-static properties.

The pseudo-variable $this is available inside any class method when that method is called from within an object context. $this is a reference to the calling object (usually the object to which the method belongs, but possibly another object, if the method is called statically from the context of a secondary object).

Example #1 property declarations


<?php
class SimpleClass
{
   // valid as of PHP 5.6.0:
   public $var1 = 'hello ' . 'world';
   // valid as of PHP 5.3.0:
   public $var2 = <<<EOD
hello world
EOD;
   // valid as of PHP 5.6.0:
   public $var3 = 1+2;
   // invalid property declarations:
   public $var4 = self::myStaticMethod();
   public $var5 = $myVar;

   // valid property declarations:
   public $var6 = myConstant;
   public $var7 = array(true, false);

   // valid as of PHP 5.3.0:
   public $var8 = <<<'EOD'
hello world
EOD;
}
?>

Note:
There are some nice functions to handle classes and objects. You might want to take a look at the Class/Object Functions.

As of PHP 5.3.0 heredocs and nowdocs can be used in any static data context, including property declarations.

Example #2 Example of using a nowdoc to initialize a property


<?php
class foo {
   // As of PHP 5.3.0
   public $bar = <<<'EOT'
bar
EOT;
   public $baz = <<<EOT
baz
EOT;
}
?>

Note:
Nowdoc and Heredoc support was added in PHP 5.3.0.

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User Contributed Notes 9 notes

down

285

Anonymous ¶

7 years ago


In case this saves anyone any time, I spent ages working out why the following didn't work:

class MyClass
{
    private $foo = FALSE;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->$foo = TRUE;

        echo($this->$foo);
    }
}

$bar = new MyClass();

giving "Fatal error: Cannot access empty property in ...test_class.php on line 8"

The subtle change of removing the $ before accesses of $foo fixes this:

class MyClass
{
    private $foo = FALSE;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->foo = TRUE;

        echo($this->foo);
    }
}

$bar = new MyClass();

I guess because it's treating $foo like a variable in the first example, so trying to call $this->FALSE (or something along those lines) which makes no sense. It's obvious once you've realised, but there aren't any examples of accessing on this page that show that.

down

anca at techliminal dot com ¶

4 years ago


You can access property names with dashes in them (for example, because you converted an XML file to an object) in the following way:

<?php
$ref = new StdClass();
$ref->{'ref-type'} = 'Journal Article';
var_dump($ref);
?>

down

Anonymous ¶

8 years ago


$this can be cast to array.  But when doing so, it prefixes the property names/new array keys with certain data depending on the property classification.  Public property names are not changed.  Protected properties are prefixed with a space-padded '*'.  Private properties are prefixed with the space-padded class name...



<?php



class test

{

    public $var1 = 1;

    protected $var2 = 2;

    private $var3 = 3;

    static $var4 = 4;

    

    public function toArray()

    {

        return (array) $this;

    }

}



$t = new test;

print_r($t->toArray());



/* outputs:



Array

(

    [var1] => 1

    [ * var2] => 2

    [ test var3] => 3

)



*/

?>



This is documented behavior when converting any object to an array (see </language.types.array.php#language.types.array.casting> PHP manual page).  All properties regardless of visibility will be shown when casting an object to array (with exceptions of a few built-in objects).



To get an array with all property names unaltered, use the 'get_object_vars($this)' function in any method within class scope to retrieve an array of all properties regardless of external visibility, or 'get_object_vars($object)' outside class scope to retrieve an array of only public properties (see: </function.get-object-vars.php> PHP manual page).

down

php at webflips dot net ¶

5 years ago


Heredoc IS valid as of PHP 5.3 and this is documented in the manual at http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php#language.types.string.syntax.heredoc

Only heredocs containing variables are invalid because then it becomes dynamic.

down

zzzzBov ¶

9 years ago


Do not confuse php's version of properties with properties in other languages (C++ for example).  In php, properties are the same as attributes, simple variables without functionality.  They should be called attributes, not properties.

Properties have implicit accessor and mutator functionality.  I've created an abstract class that allows implicit property functionality.

<?php

abstract class PropertyObject
{
  public function __get($name)
  {
    if (method_exists($this, ($method = 'get_'.$name)))
    {
      return $this->$method();
    }
    else return;
  }
  
  public function __isset($name)
  {
    if (method_exists($this, ($method = 'isset_'.$name)))
    {
      return $this->$method();
    }
    else return;
  }
  
  public function __set($name, $value)
  {
    if (method_exists($this, ($method = 'set_'.$name)))
    {
      $this->$method($value);
    }
  }
  
  public function __unset($name)
  {
    if (method_exists($this, ($method = 'unset_'.$name)))
    {
      $this->$method();
    }
  }
}

?>

after extending this class, you can create accessors and mutators that will be called automagically, using php's magic methods, when the corresponding property is accessed.

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-9

Ashley Dambra ¶

5 years ago


Updated method objectThis() to transtypage class array properties or array to stdClass.

Hope it help you.

public function objectThis($array = null) {
    if (!$array) {
        foreach ($this as $property_name => $property_values) {
            if (is_array($property_values) && !empty($property_values)) {
                $this->{$property_name} = $this->objectThis($property_values);
            } else if (is_array($property_values) && empty($property_values)) {
                $this->{$property_name} = new stdClass();
            }
        }
    } else {
        $object = new stdClass();
        foreach ($array as $index => $values) {
            if (is_array($values) && empty($values)) {
                $object->{$index} = new stdClass();
            } else if (is_array($values)) {
                $object->{$index} = $this->objectThis($values);
            } else {
                $object->{$index} = $values;
            }
        }
        return $object;
    }
}

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-5

Markus Zeller ¶

2 years ago


Accessing a property without any value initialized will give NULL.

class foo
{
  private $bar;

  public __construct()
  {
      var_dump($this->bar); // null
  }
}

down

-12

AshleyDambra at live dot com ¶

5 years ago


Add this method to you class in order to 'transtypage' all the array properties into stdClass();

Hope it help you.

public function objectThis($object = null) {
    if (!$object) {
        foreach ($this as $property_name => $property_values) {
            if (is_array($property_values)) {
                $this->{$property_name} = $this->objectThis($property_values);
            }
        }
    } else {
        $object2 = new stdClass();
        foreach ($object as $index => $values) {
            if (is_array($values)) {
                $object2->{$index} = $this->objectThis($values);
            } else {
                $object2->{$index} = $values;
            }
        }
        return $object2;
    }
}

down

-27

Anonymous ¶

4 years ago


In case this saves anyone any time, I spent ages working out why the following didn't work:



class MyClass

{

    private $foo = FALSE;



    public function __construct()

    {

        $this->$foo = TRUE;



        echo($this->$foo);

    }

}



$bar = new MyClass();



giving "Fatal error: Cannot access empty property in ...test_class.php on line 8"



The subtle change of removing the $ before accesses of $foo fixes this:



class MyClass

{

    private $foo = FALSE;



    public function __construct()

    {

        $this->foo = TRUE;



        echo($this->foo);

    }

}



$bar = new MyClass();



I guess because it's treating $foo like a variable in the first example, so trying to call $this->FALSE (or something along those lines) which makes no sense. It's obvious once you've realised, but there aren't any examples of accessing on this page that show that.



[Editor's note: Removed copy of note by zzzzBov]

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