Triggering __call() in PHP even when method exists

php magic-methods
Chad Johnson picture Chad Johnson · Jul 2, 2009 · Viewed 11k times · Source

The PHP documentation says the following about the __call() magic method:

__call() is triggered when invoking inaccessible methods in an object context.

Is there a way I can have __call() called even when a method exists, before the actual method is called? Or, is there some other hook I can implement or another way that would provide this functionality?

If it matters, this is for a static function (and I would actually prefer to use __callStatic).

Answer

Pim Jager picture Pim Jager · Jul 2, 2009

Why not just make all your methods protected and call them using __call():

 class bar{
    public function __call($method, $args){
        echo "calling $method";
        //do other stuff
        //possibly do method_exists check
        return call_user_func_array(array($this, $method), $args);
    }
    protected function foo($arg){
       return $arg;
    }
 }

$bar = new bar;
$bar->foo("baz"); //echo's 'calling foo' and returns 'baz'

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