How to create my own PHP magic method names?

Question

Some frameworks have their own magic methods names, such as

$player->findByName('Lionel Messi')

which results in a simple SELECT * FROM players WHERE name='Lionel Messi' query. In PHP how can I make similar methods? Do they somehow catch the global MethodNotFoundException?

Answer 1

Use __call magic method. Read more about it in docs, that is all you need.

http://php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.magic.php

public function __call($name, $args) {
    // TODO: Parse called method name and run query if needed
}