Dynamically add a private property to an object

Question

I have a class:

class Foo {
    // Accept an assoc array and appends its indexes to the object as property
    public function extend($values){
        forea         


        

Answer 1

Here is an accessor based approach:

class Extendible
{
    private $properties;

    public function extend(array $properties)
    {
        foreach ($properties as $name => $value) {
            $this->properties[$name] = $value;
        }
    }

    public function __call($method, $parameters)
    {
        $accessor = substr($method, 0, 3);
        $property = lcfirst(substr($method, 3));
        if (($accessor !== 'get' && $accessor !== 'set')
                || !isset($this->properties[$property])) {
            throw new Exception('No such method!');
        }
        switch ($accessor) {
            case 'get':
                return $this->getProperty($property);
                break;
            case 'set':
                return $this->setProperty($property, $parameters[0]);
                break;
        }
    }

    private function getProperty($name)
    {
        return $this->properties[$name];
    }

    private function setProperty($name, $value)
    {
        $this->properties[$name] = $value;
        return $this;
    }
}

Demo:

try {
    $x = new Extendible();
    $x->extend(array('foo' => 'bar'));
    echo $x->getFoo(), PHP_EOL; // Shows 'bar'
    $x->setFoo('baz');
    echo $x->getFoo(), PHP_EOL; // Shows 'baz'
    echo $x->getQuux(), PHP_EOL; // Throws Exception
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo 'Error: ', $e->getMessage(), PHP_EOL;
}