Get And Set Method in PHP

Introduction

PHP is a loosely typed language. There is no need to declare variables first to other language for assigning a value. In PHP it is not necessary to declare variables before using them. I am writing an example of that.

<?php
class Myclass
public $val;
$c = new Customer();
$c->val = "abc";
$c->email = "[email protected]";
?>

In the another strict language like C#, it would be an error, but in the PHP its ok. So PHP works perfectly with this, and you can assign a value to an undefined variable. Because of this feature PHP provides two magic __get and __set methods. The purpose of these methods will be to run when you try to access a variable that has not been declared. In PHP __set() is used when a value is to be assigned to an undefined variable of a class and __get() is used when the value from an undefined variable is to be read.

__set() magic method

The __set() is run when writing data to inaccessible properties.

__get() magic method

The __get() magic method reads data from inaccessible properties.

Example

<?php
class MyClass
{
private $fname;
private $lname;
private $email;

// set user's first name
public function setFName($fname)
{
$this->fname = $fname;
}

// get user's first name
public function getFName()
{
return $this->fname;
}

// set user's last name
public function setLName($lname)
{
$this->lname = $lname;
}

// get user's last name
public function getLName()
{
return $this->lname;
}