Calling closure assigned to object property directly

Question

I would like to be able to call a closure that I assign to an object\'s property directly without reassigning the closure to a variable and then calling it. Is this possible

Answer 1

I know this is old, but I think Traits nicely handle this problem if you are using PHP 5.4+

First, create a trait that makes properties callable:

trait CallableProperty {
    public function __call($method, $args) {
        if (property_exists($this, $method) && is_callable($this->$method)) {
            return call_user_func_array($this->$method, $args);
        }
    }
}

Then, you can use that trait in your classes:

class CallableStdClass extends stdClass {
    use CallableProperty;
}

Now, you can define properties via anonymous functions and call them directly:

$foo = new CallableStdClass();
$foo->add = function ($a, $b) { return $a + $b; };
$foo->add(2, 2); // 4