Get a static property of an instance

Question

If I have an instance in PHP, what's the easiest way to get to a static property ('class variable') of that instance ?

This

$classvars=get_class_vars(get_class($thing));
$property=$classvars['property'];

Sound really overdone. I would expect

$thing::property

or

$thing->property

EDIT: this is an old question. There are more obvious ways to do this in newer PHP, search below.

Answer 1

You need to lookup the class name first:

$class = get_class($thing);
$class::$property

$property must be defined as static and public of course.

Answer 2

From inside a class instance you can simply use self::...

class Person {
  public static $name = 'Joe';
  public function iam() {
    echo 'My name is ' . self::$name;
  }
}

$me = new Person();
$me->iam(); // displays "My name is Joe"