How to create new property dynamically

Question

How can I create a property from a given argument inside a object's method?

class Foo{

  public function createProperty($var_name, $val){
    // here how can I create a property named "$var_name"
    // that takes $val as value?

  }

}

And I want to be able to access the property like:

$object = new Foo();
$object->createProperty('hello', 'Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii');

echo $object->hello;

Also is it possible that I could make the property public/protected/private ? I know that in this case it should be public, but I may want to add some magik methods to get protected properties and stuff :)

---

I think I found a solution:

  protected $user_properties = array();

  public function createProperty($var_name, $val){
    $this->user_properties[$var_name] = $val;

  }

  public function __get($name){
    if(isset($this->user_properties[$name])
      return $this->user_properties[$name];

  }

do you think it's a good idea?

Answer 1

There are two methods to doing it.

One, you can directly create property dynamically from outside the class:

class Foo{

}

$foo = new Foo();
$foo->hello = 'Something';

Or if you wish to create property through your createProperty method:

class Foo{
    public function createProperty($name, $value){
        $this->{$name} = $value;
    }
}

$foo = new Foo();
$foo->createProperty('hello', 'something');