I was trying to find a method to handle enumeration in PHP. None of the approaches I found can actually use enumeration to limit the arguments to functions/methods, which is the main reason I want enums.
So I started trying to create my own, but have now run into a problem using reflection:
<?php
class Enum {
private $_value;
protected function __construct($value) {
$this->_value = $value;
}
public function getValue() {
return $this->_value;
}
protected static function enumerate($class) {
$ref = new ReflectionClass($class);
$instances = array();
foreach ($ref->getStaticProperties() as $name => $value) {
$ref->setStaticPropertyValue($name, new $class($value));
}
}
}
class Book extends Enum {
public static $COMIC = 1;
public static $NOVEL = 2;
public static $EDUCATIONAL = 3;
public static function enumerate() {
parent::enumerate(__CLASS__);
}
}
Book::enumerate();
function read(Book $book) {
echo '<hr/>';
var_dump($book);
}
read(Book::$COMIC);
read(Book::$EDUCATIONAL);
?>
I expected output to show two Book objects with their respective values, instead I got this:
object(Book)#2 (1) { ["_value:private"]=> object(Book)#2 (1) { ["_value:private"]=> *RECURSION* } }
object(Book)#4 (1) { ["_value:private"]=> object(Book)#4 (1) { ["_value:private"]=> *RECURSION* } }
The value (new $class
) going into setStaticPropertyValue
is correct and there are created only three of these.
getStaticProperties
only picks up the static properties (as it should) and the only place the private $_value
is assigned is in the constructor.
For completeness sake, the constructor is called only three times and inside the constructor, the value is, as expected, only ever 1, 2 or 3. In short, everything seems to be perfectly fine until the calls to setStaticPropertyValue
.
I can't figure out what is going on here. Where and why is the private $_value
assigned this wrong value? Am I using reflection the wrong way? What is creating these infinite recursive objects?