force PHP to throw an error on undefined property

Question

This will throw an error:

class foo
{
   var $bar;

   public function getBar()
   {
      return $this->Bar; // beware of capital 'B': "Fatal:    unknown property".
   }

}

But this won't:

class foo
{
   var $bar;

   public function setBar($val)
   {
      $this->Bar = $val; // beware of capital 'B': silently defines a new prop "Bar"
   }

}

How can I force PHP to throw errors in BOTH cases? I consider the second case more critical than the first (as it took me 2 hours to search for a d....ned typo in a property).

Answer 1

You can use magic methods

__set() is run when writing data to inaccessible properties.

__get() is utilized for reading data from inaccessible properties.

class foo
{
   var $bar;

   public function setBar($val)
   {
      $this->Bar = $val; // beware of capital 'B': silently defines a new prop "Bar"
   }

   public function __set($var, $val)
   {
     trigger_error("Property $var doesn't exists and cannot be set.", E_USER_ERROR);
   }

   public function  __get($var)
   {
     trigger_error("Property $var doesn't exists and cannot be get.", E_USER_ERROR);
   }

}

$obj = new foo(); 
$obj->setBar('a');

It will cast error

Fatal error: Property Bar doesn't exists and cannot be set. on line 13

You can set Error Levels according to PHP error levels