Chaining Static Methods in PHP?

Question

Is it possible to chain static methods together using a static class? Say I wanted to do something like this:

$value = TestClass::toValue(5)::add(3)::subtrac         


        

Answer 1

Technically you can call a static method on an instance like $object::method() in PHP 7+, so returning a new instance should work as a replacement for return self. And indeed it works.

final class TestClass {
    public static $currentValue;

    public static function toValue($value) {
        self::$currentValue = $value;
        return new static();
    }

    public static function add($value) {
        self::$currentValue = self::$currentValue + $value;
        return new static();
    }

    public static function subtract($value) {
        self::$currentValue = self::$currentValue - $value;
        return new static();
    }

    public static function result() {
        return self::$currentValue;
    }
}

$value = TestClass::toValue(5)::add(3)::subtract(2)::add(8)::result();

var_dump($value);

Outputs int(14).

This about same as returning __CLASS__ as used in other answer. I rather hope no-one ever decides to actually use these forms of API, but you asked for it.