How do I learn the methods that can be accessed for certain objects?

Question

I have the following code:

$_productCollection = Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product_collection')  
->addAttributeToSelect(array('name', 'price', 'small_image', 'status'), 'inner')  
->addCategoryFilter(Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($catid)); 
$_helper = $this->helper('catalog/output');
foreach ($_productCollection as $_product):
    echo $_product->getProductUrl();
endforeach

I want to learn how I discover the methods I can use on an object.

For example $_product->getProductUrl() is using the method getProductUrl() to get the url, but I need price and have no idea what method calls that. Using a print_r doesn't provide enough info for me to discover what they are. I presume they are in controllers that are located in the MAGE core. I have commerce bug and I have tired looking at: http://docs.magentocommerce.com/ But I find myself lost at times.

Does anyone know a good tutorial on this or can give me direction to figuring this out?

Answer 1

First, in models and blocks, any method with get or a set may actually be a magic method that's pulling from the object's _data array. You can see all the data in an object like this

var_dump($object->getData());

So if this array had a key named some_data, you could call a method named getSomeData

echo $object->getSomeData();

Remember though, some methods will have actual methods that start with get and set, so always check the class definition.

Secondly, you can use PHP reflection functions (or the more complete but complicated PHP Reflection Class API) to see what class an object is, and then get a list of methods on that class

First, use get_class to get the name of an object's class.

$class_name = get_class($object);

Then, pass that get_class_methods to get a list of all the callable methods on an object

$class_name = get_class($object);
$methods = get_class_methods($class_name);
echo "Methods for class $class_name \n<br />\n";
foreach($methods as $method)
{
    var_dump($method);
}

This will give you a list of all the class methods. You can then use the Class/URI Lookup tab of Commercebug bug to quickly zero in on which file a class is defined in to look at the method definitions. Remember, some methods will be defined in ancestor classes. Investing the time to learn an IDE or a program like ctags is well worth the investment, ad they'll let you quickly jump to individual class definitions.