PHP class: Global variable as property in class

Question

I have a global variable outside my class = $MyNumber;

How do I declare this as a property in myClass?
For every method in my class, this is what

Answer 1

You probably don't really want to be doing this, as it's going to be a nightmare to debug, but it seems to be possible. The key is the part where you assign by reference in the constructor.

$GLOBALS = array(
    'MyNumber' => 1
);

class Foo {
    protected $glob;

    public function __construct() {
        global $GLOBALS;
        $this->glob =& $GLOBALS;
    }

    public function getGlob() {
        return $this->glob['MyNumber'];
    }
}

$f = new Foo;

echo $f->getGlob() . "\n";
$GLOBALS['MyNumber'] = 2;
echo $f->getGlob() . "\n";

The output will be

1
2

which indicates that it's being assigned by reference, not value.

As I said, it will be a nightmare to debug, so you really shouldn't do this. Have a read through the wikipedia article on encapsulation; basically, your object should ideally manage its own data and the methods in which that data is modified; even public properties are generally, IMHO, a bad idea.