PHP - 带有静态函数的init类

Question

I would like to call a class without initializing it even if it's normally not static. So basically it should init itself with the first method call.

I'm wondering how laravel is doing this:

$someClass = SomeClass::where()->get()

This works on every method they provide.

I googled a long time but as long as you don't know the name of this behavior it's really hard to find.

Would be nice if you could help me out.

Answer 1

Laravel (sometimes) calls this feature a "Facade" -- explaining how this is accomplished in Laravel means going way down the Laravel rabbit hole and is beyond the scope of a single Stack Overflow answer -- if you're interested in that I'm the author of a 10 article series that covers the implementation details of a lot of Laravel's "magic" methods -- worth checking out if you're the sort who likes those sort of nitty gritty details. The PHP manual entry on overloading is also useful.

The short version is, all PHP classes have a magic method named __callStatic. If your class has __callStatic defined

class Foo
{
    public function __callStatic($method, $args)
    {
    }
}

and you call a method that does not exist, or is protected/private

Foo::notThere(1,2,'foo');

Then PHP will call the __callStatic method instead, with $method being the method's name (notThere above) and $args being an array of parameters passed to the method (1, 2, and foo above)