Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours, Third Edition

Intercepting Calls to Object Properties and Methods

PHP 5 introduces three built-in methods that you can use to trap messages to your objects and alter default behavior.

Usually, if an undefined method is called, a fatal error will be generated and your script will fail. If you define a __call() method in your class, however, you can catch the message and decide what to do with it. Every time an undeclared method is called on your object, the __call() method will be invoked. Two arguments will automatically be populated for you: a string variable holding the name of the method that was called and an array variable holding any arguments that were passed. Anything you return from __call() is returned to the client code as if the undefined method ...