Get object class name from within parent class? - php

Question

I am wanting to use the get_class($var) to show the class of an object. What would be the best way to do this? My code at the moment is:
abstract class userCharacter {
var $cName;
var $cLevel = 0;
var $cHP = 50;
var $cMP = 20;
function __construct($n) {
$this->cName = $n;
}
function showDetails() {
echo $this->cName . "<br />";
echo "Level: " . $this->cLevel . "<br />";
echo "HP: " . $this->cHP . "<br />";
echo "MP: " . $this->cMP . "<br />";
}
} // userCharacter
class warrior extends userCharacter {
} // warrior
And I create the object with:
$charOne = new warrior($name);
What I'm wanting to do is in the showDetails() function of the userCharacter class have a line similar to:
echo "Class: " . get_class($charOne) . "<br />";
But, I'm pretty sure that this won't work because the $charOne variable isn't in the right scope.
I'm thinking that I would need to declare $charOne with something like:
global $charOne = new warrior($name);
Would this work? If not, what is the best way to do this, if possible at all?

Answer 1

You want
echo get_class($this) ;
At runtime, the actual class will be figured out. That's what is cool about polymorphism.
However, even better, you want to do something like this:
echo $this->getClassDisplayName();
Then write that function for each subclass.
Or, the base class can have this type of function:
function getClassDisplayName()
{
return ($this->classDisplayName == "" ? getClass($this) : $this->classDisplayName );
}
Then in the constructor of your subclasses:
public __construct()
{
$this->classDisplayName = "The Mighty Warriors of Azgoth";
}