Laravel doesn't remember class variables - php

Question

I have a class in Laravel with a class variable that holds and object
class RegisterController extends Controller {
public $company;
When i set the variable in my index method all goes well
public function index($id = null) {
$this->company = new Teamleader\Company;
When I try to access $this->company from another method it returns
null
This is my full code
class RegisterController extends Controller {
public $company;
public function index($id = null)
{
$this->company = new Teamleader\Company;
// returns ok!
dd($this->company);
return view('register.index');
}
public function register()
{
// returns null
dd($this->company);
}
}
Am I missing something?
Thank you!

Answer 1

You are not __constructing() the class, you are just assigning variable inside a function inside a class, which means it is encapsulated into that function inside that class.
So if you would like to make $this->company global in class, you could use
public function __construct() {
$this->company = new Teamleader\Company;
}

Answer 2

In Laravel 5 you can inject a new instance of Teamleader\Company into the methods you need it available in.
use Teamleader\Company;
class RegisterController extends Controller {
public function index($id = null, Company $company)
{
dd($company);
}
public function register(Company $company)
{
dd($company);
}
}
For Laravel <5 dependency inject into the constructor.
use Teamleader\Company;
class RegisterController extends Controller {
protected $company;
public function __construct(Company $company)
{
$this->company = $company;
}
public function index($id = null)
{
dd($this->company);
}
public function register()
{
dd($this->company);
}
}
Dependency injection is better than manual invocation as you can easily pass a mock object to this controller during testing. If you're not testing, maybe someone else will be in the future, be kind. :-)