Search code examples
phpoopphpstorm

What does 'field declared dynamically' mean in this situation?

I'm pretty new to OOP and PHP. I'm using the IDE PhpStorm and it's giving me this (see below) warning on my reference to $width.

Warning 'Field declared dynamically'

Here is my code:

<?php
class box {
    private $width;

    function __construct(){
        $this->width = 3;
    }
}
?>

I've never seen the term "field" used before, and I'm not entirely sure what the sentence "Field declared dynamically" means.

It seems like this warning just showed up today after I updated PhpStorm. Did I do something wrong?

Also, if anyone can briefly explain what the warning means by "Note: Check is not performed on objects of type "stdClass" or derived"?

Solution

  • Please do File | Invalidate Caches... and restart IDE -- your indexes seems to be corrupted/out-of-date after update.

    and I'm not entirely sure what the sentence "Field declared dynamically" means.

    This means that the field/property is not explicitly declared but relies on __get() and __set() magic methods to have it working.

    In your case you do have field declared properly (the private $width; part) -- it's just an IDE glitch that quite often happens after IDE gets updated to newer version.

    Also, if anyone can briefly explain what the warning means by "Note: Check is not performed on objects of type "stdClass" or derived"?

    It means exactly that: this check is not performed if the object is an instance of stdClass or extends such class.

    This is because of the nature of stdClass -- it can accept calls to any fields (even undefined -- it will silently define it for you during runtime) and will not throw the errors that usual classes would in such cases.