My question (or problem) exists with trying to find if a child class has access to a method of a certain name.

 

I've done some google searching on it, and one solution I've found is simply passing the instance of the child class to the parent but I was wondering if there was a way to check in a more direct manner.

 

<?

abstract class ParentClass {

   protected function __construct( $var=null ) {
       if ($var == "testing") {
           // 1. check if child has method "testing"
           // 2. call "testing"
       }
   }

}

class ChildClass extends ParentClass {

   public function __construct( $var=null ) {
       parent::__construct( $var );
   }

   public function testing() {
       echo "Testing exists";
   }

}

$child = new ChildClass("testing");

Edited August 27, 201214 yr by Siege84

you can check method_exists and is_callable. Remember that parent methods and members will be available to the child class so you can probably get away with using $this or parent.

 

If you need more advanced checking your can use reflection - http://php.net/manual/en/book.reflection.php

you can check method_exists and is_callable. Remember that parent methods and members will be available to the child class so you can probably get away with using $this or parent.

 

If you need more advanced checking your can use reflection - http://php.net/manua....reflection.php

 

I'm not at all familiar with reflection yet. However, after seeing your post I adjusted my code to the following and it seems to work as intended. Just a small change to the parent constructor:

 

<?

abstract class ParentClass {

   protected function __construct( $var=null ) {
       if ( method_exists($this, $var) && is_callable( array($this, $var)) )
           $this->$var();
   }

}

class ChildClass extends ParentClass {

   public function __construct( $var=null ) {
       parent::__construct( $var );
   }

   public function testing() {
       echo "Testing exists";
   }

}

$one = new ChildClass();
$two = new ChildClass("testing");

You want the parent class to know if a child class has a certain method? Am I understanding your question correctly?