Automated Getter/Setter Functions - php

Question

I'm looking at Doctrine 2 and Symfony documentation for creating a model class.There are several code snippets where a getProperty and setProperty is used within the class, and these are somehow used automatically when a value is assigned directly to the property. This is different then the typical get/set magic methods, and the sample code I have come across does not implement any custom magic methods, so I believe this is handled by Doctrine somewhere.
From what I've read, Doctrine implements accessors and mutators. Maybe I missed a package when downloading Pear, or maybe I'm not including something in my script.
For example:
class User {
public $name;
public function getName()
{
// Do stuff
}
}
$user = new User();
$foo = $user->name; // getName is called
Note: I'm looking for a Doctrine specific solution. I know this can be done in someway with PHP, but I want to use Doctrine's native functions.
Edit: Updated to clarify how this differs from typical get/set magic methods, and note.

Answer 1

class User {
private $name;
public function __get($property) {
$methodName = "get".ucfirst($property);
if (method_exists($this, $methodName)) {
return call_user_func(array($this, $methodName));
} elseif (isset($this->{$property})) {
return $this->{$property};
}
return null;
}
public function __set($property, $value) {
$methodName = "set".ucfirst($property);
if (method_exists($this, $methodName)) {
call_user_func_array(array($this,$methodName), array($value));
} else {
$this->{$property} = $value;
}
}
public function getName() {
return "My name is ".$this->name;
}
}
$user = new User();
$user->name = "Foo";
$bar = $user->name;
echo $bar; // "My name is Foo"
If there is a method getSomething or setSomething it will be called when accessing the properties directly.
As I read in this documentation page, it is exactly what the code above does what Doctrine does. But it calls the method _set('fieldName', 'value').

Answer 2

If $name is declared public then this line of code:
$foo = $user->name;
is actually accessing the $name field, and is not in fact calling the getName function.
You can use PHP's magic __get and __set methods to automagically provide accessors and mutators, like this:
class User {
private $name;
public function __get($property) {
//check first to make sure that $property exists
return $this->$property;
}
public function __set($property, $value) {
//check first to make sure that $property exists
$this->$property = $value;
}
}
$user = new User();
$user->name = "Foo";
$bar = $user->name;
echo $bar; //"Foo"
You can find more info about PHP's magic methods here.
UPDATE: This is what I think Doctrine is doing:
class User {
private $name;
public function __get($property) {
$propertyTitleCase = mb_convert_case($property, MB_CASE_TITLE);
$method = "get{$propertyTitleCase}";
if(method_exists($this, $method))
{
return $this->$method();
}
else {
return $this->$property;
}
}
public function getName() {
//Do Stuff
}
}