Property Accessors at Declaration - php

Question

I'm looking for a way to maintain the $this->property = "value" syntax, but use getter and setter methods.
I found several references to the magic functions __get() and __set(), but I'm looking to provide accessors on more of a case by case basis.
I then found this: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/propertygetsetsyntax-v1.2, which seems like exactly what I was looking for, but alas doesn't seem to have been implemented.
Is there a way to do this without class-wide functions to check every property assignment?

Answer 1

For me, you have two options:
You want to use magic methods to cover all getters and setters, and you'll store your data that would be got/set in a property like $this->_data[] to avoid conflicts with other properties
You want to create specific getters/setters and you manually define them in the classes you want them to be used in (or high up the inheritance chain so they're available to every class that extends it - useful in MVC architecture).
The magic methods approach is a good "cover all bases" approach whereas the individual approach is better for clarity and knowing exactly what is available to implementations/children.
A good example of option 1 (magic methods) is available in the manual, here.
I would add that if you want a "case by case" basis for properties, you could also add a whitelist/blacklist into your magic methods to include/exclude a specific set of properties, example extending what is in the manual:
private $data = array();
private $whitelist = array('PropertyIWant', 'AnotherOneIWant');
// ...
public function __get($name)
{
// ...
if (array_key_exists($name, $this->data) && in_array($name, $this->whitelist)) {
return $this->data[$name];
}
// ...

Answer 2

You could use call:
class Test {
protected $a;
protected $b;
protected $valueForC;
protected $otherData = array('d' => null);
public function __call($method, $args) {
if (preg_match('#^((?:get|set))(.*)$#', $method, $match)) {
$property = lcfirst($match[2]);
$action = $match[1];
if ($action === 'set') {
$this->$property = $args[0];
} else {
return $this->$property;
}
}
}
public function getD() {
return $this->otherData['d'];
}
public function setD($value)
{
$this->otherData['d'] = $value;
}
}
$x = new Test();
$x->setA('a value');
$x->setB('b value');
$x->setValueForC('c value');
$x->setD('special value for D');
echo $x->getA() ."\n";
echo $x->getB() ."\n";
echo $x->getValueForC() ."\n";
echo $x->getD() ."\n";