Best practices for static constructors

Question

I want to create an instance of a class and call a method on that instance, in a single line of code.

PHP won\'t allow calling a method on a regular constructor:

Answer 1

A bit late to the party but I think this might help.

class MyClass 
{

    function __construct() {
       // constructor initializations here
    }

    public static myMethod($set = null) {

       // if myclass is not instantiated
       if (is_null($set)) {
           // return new instance
           $d = new MyClass();
           return $d->Up('s');
       } else {
           // myclass is instantiated
           // my method code goes here
       }
    }
}

this can then be used as

$result = MyClass::myMethod();

optional parameters can be passed through either the __constructor or myMethod.
This is my first post and I hope I got the gimmicks right

Answer 2

If you don't need a reference to the newly constructed Foo, why don't you simply make set_sth a static function (and have it create a new Foo internally if required)?

If you do need to get hold of the reference, how would you do it? return $this in set_sth? But then set_sth can be made into a factory function anyway.

The only situation I can think of is if you want to call chainable methods (like in a fluent interface) on a newly constructed instance all in one expression. Is that what you are trying to do?

Anyway, you can use a general-purpose factory function for all types of objects, e.g.

function create_new($type) {
    return new $type;
}

create_new('Foo')->set_sth();