What does the variable $this mean in PHP?

Question

I see the variable $this in PHP all the time and I have no idea what it\'s used for. I\'ve never personally used it.

Can someone tell me how the variab

Answer 1

It is the way to reference an instance of a class from within itself, the same as many other object oriented languages.

From the PHP docs:

The pseudo-variable $this is available when a 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).