Class returning object confusion

[denno020]

I've been asked to create a class that does some stuff, and then returns an object with read only properties.. Now I've created the class and I've got everything working 100%, however I'm confused when they say to 'return an object with read only properties'..

 

This is the outline of my php file which contains the class and some extra lines calling it etc:

class original(){
protected $self = array();
function __construct{
  //do processing and build the array
}

function getAttributes(){
  return $this->self; //return the protected array (for reading)
}
}

$original = new original();

print_r($original->getAttributes());

 

Can someone please help me with returning an object or something?

 

Thanks

Denno

[ignace]

PHP has no direct way of saying a property should be read-only. However you can emulate it when you use magic properties:

 

// in case of an object:
public function __set($key, $val) {
  return ;
}
// in case of an array:
// implements ArrayAccess::offsetSet interface
public function offsetSet($key, $val) {
  return ;
}

 

This avoids any property being overwritten (object or array).