How do I call a static method of a class stored as a variable?

Question

Why, in a class instance context, don't calls of the form $this->className::staticMethod work, but calls of the form $className::staticMethod do work?

In the example below callDoSomething2 works, but callDoSomething does not work (I get a parser error). I'm using PHP version 5.3.15.

<?php
class A {
    private $className;

    public function __construct($className) {
        $this->className = $className;
    }

    public function callDoSomething() {
        $this->className::doSomething();
    }

    public function callDoSomething2() {
        $className = $this->className;
        $className::doSomething();
    }
}

class B {
    public static function doSomething() {
        echo "hello\n";
    }
}

$a = new A('B');
$a->doSomething();

Duplicate: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2108795/dynamic-static-method-call-in-php — Fabian Blechschmidt, Feb 13 '13 at 22:51
See http://php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.paamayim-nekudotayim.php — nice ass, Feb 13 '13 at 22:58

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 13 '13 at 22:52

1

callDoSomething2 is one way to do it, the other would be to use something along the lines of

call_user_func("{$this->className}::doSomething");

answered Feb 13 '13 at 22:52

sgrif

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Can you provide an explanation for why `callDoSomething` doesn't work? PHP parser just can't handle that? – maxenglander Feb 13 '13 at 22:55
Yes, it's a parse error -- The PHP parser just can't handle that. – sgrif Feb 13 '13 at 23:00

How do I call a static method of a class stored as a variable?

1 Answers1