PHP get variable's name of class instance?

Question

I'm new to PHP so this question seems stupid, but suppose I'm assigning variable ABC with value to be a new object of class XYZ, then how could I get the name "ABC" inside XYZ's class definition ?

$ABC = new XYZ;
$ABC->echoInstanceName(); //--I wish this line could echo out : ABC

Is this easier when the instance is assigned to an array's element ?

$ABC = array('myElem'=>new XYZ);
$ABC['myElem']->echoInstanceName(); //--I wish this line could echo out : ABC

All suggestions appreciated !

More infos : I'm doing kind of thing: build a system of animals.

Started with class nativeAnimal & extended to Monkey, Elephant, Fish...etc. And in runtime, I create a 2-tiers array that each array's element is an instance of type Monkey, Elephant, or Fish...

I want the array's key is the animal's name. And inside the class Monkey, I want a function to echo the Monkey's name. Of course I can pass the array's key to the instance somehow, but I want to avoid typing it twice. (That can lead to error(s) later when I change just one name)

Is this so impossible ? Or could you please suggest a better pattern ? Thanks !

It's not generally possible to do so. Why do you (think you) need this? — deceze
– deceze ♦, Commented Feb 29, 2012 at 9:44

hsz · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-29 09:45:52Z

5

You cannot do this. If you want to pass ABC value to the XYZ class, do it with an extra argument in constructor:

$ABC = new XYZ('ABC');

There is no other way to inform class about variable that it was assigned to.

Example XYZ class:

class XYZ {
  protected $name;
  public __construct($name) {
    $this->name = $name;
  }

  public echoInstanceName() {
    echo $name;
  }

  public getName() {
    return $this->name;
  }
}

answered Feb 29, 2012 at 9:45

hsz

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3 Comments

deceze Over a year ago

Well, you could do some debug_backtraceing and introspection and hacking... But there's really no reason to do so, so +1. :)

David Tran Over a year ago

I've just added some infos, please see if you could suggest something else. Thanks !

hsz Over a year ago

In my opinion you can pass animal's name to the constructor and skip the array keys. Then you can work with foreach and just call method getName() on the animals objects.

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