Pro PHP- Patterns, Frameworks, Testing and More

(^50) CHAPTER 5 ■ WHAT'S NEW IN PHP 6

Dynamic Static Methods

The __call() functionality allows you to create a wildcard type method that will handle all

undefined calls to methods to the class. The parameters of the method are the name of the

called method and an array of the parameters passed to the method. You can now create dynamic

static methods in the same manner as __call is used for non-static methods. With PHP 6, static

functionality is handled by implementing the magic method __callStatic() as shown in

Listing 5-14.

Listing 5-14. Using __callStatic for Dynamic Static Methods

<?php

class MyClass {

public static function __callStatic($name, $parameters) {

echo $name .' method called. Parameters: '. PHP_EOL.

var_export($parameters, true). PHP_EOL;

}

}

MyClass::bogus(1, false, 'a');

bogus method called. Parameters:

array (

0 => 1,

1 => false,

2 => 'a',

)

Ternary Assignment Shorthand (ifsetor)

One of the more common operations when working with input data is the use of the ternary

operator to provide a default value when an input is not present or fails to validate. You have

likely seen code like this:

$safe = $input? $input : 'default';

This is wordier than needed, so the middle value has been made optional. You can now

simply use the ifsetor syntax, ?:, like this:

$safe = $input ?: 'default';

XMLWriter Class

Creating XML documents is a key part of modern web programming. You will often need to

export data using XML formats. You have several existing options for creating XML documents,

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