How to create PHP method linking?

Question

I've seen other objects that do this:

$obj->method1()->method2();

How do I do that? Is each function just modifying the pointer of an object or returning a pointer?

I don't know the proper term for this style -- if anyone could help me with that, it would be great.

Answer 1

This is achieved by returning $this at the end of each function, thus giving a chainable reference.

class MyClass {
    public function method1() {
        //...
        return $this;
    }
    public function method2() {
        //...
        return $this;
    }
}

Answer 2

Fluid interface.

Simply set your object's method1() to return $this