How to declare dynamic PHP class with {'property-names-like-this'}

Question

Im rewriting application from .NET to PHP. I need to create class like this:

class myClass
{
    public ${\'property-name-with-minus-signs\'} = 5;
    public         


        

Answer 1

I used code like this:

class myClass
{

    function __construct() {

        // i had to initialize class with some default values
        $this->{'fvalue-string'} = '';
        $this->{'fvalue-int'} = 0;
        $this->{'fvalue-float'} = 0;
        $this->{'fvalue-image'} = 0;
        $this->{'fvalue-datetime'} = 0;   
    }
}

Answer 2

You can use the __get magic method to achieve this, although it may become inconvenient, depending on the purpose:

class MyClass {
    private $properties = array(
        'property-name-with-minus-signs' => 5
    );

    public function __get($prop) {
        if(isset($this->properties[$prop])) {
            return $this->properties[$prop];
        }

        throw new Exception("Property $prop does not exist.");
    }
}

It should work well for your purposes, however, considering that -s aren't allowed in identifiers in most .NET languages anyway and you're probably using an indexer, which is analogous to __get.

Answer 3

You cannot use hyphens (dashes) in PHP class properties. PHP variable names, class properties, function names and method names must begin with a letter or underscore ([A-Za-z_]) and may be followed by any number of digits ([0-9]).

You can get around this limitation by using member overloading:

class foo
{
    private $_data = array(
        'some-foo' => 4,
    );

    public function __get($name) {
        if (isset($this->_data[$name])) {
            return $this->_data[$name];
        }

        return NULL;
    }

    public function __set($name, $value) {
        $this->_data[$name] = $value;
    }
}

$foo = new foo();
var_dump($foo->{'some-foo'});
$foo->{'another-var'} = 10;
var_dump($foo->{'another-var'});

However, I would heavily discourage this method as it is very intensive and just generally a bad way to program. Variables and members with dashes are not common in either PHP or .NET as has been pointed out.