How to get the name of the calling class (in PHP)

Question

define('anActionType', 1);
$actionTypes = array(anActionType => 'anActionType');
class core {
    public $callbacks = array();
    public $plugins = array();
    public function __construct() {
        $this->plugins[] = new admin();
        $this->plugins[] = new client();
    }
}
abstract class plugin {
    public function registerCallback($callbackMethod, $onAction) {
        if (!isset($this->callbacks[$onAction]))
            $this->callbacks[$onAction] = array();

        global $actionTypes;
        echo "Calling $callbackMethod in $callbacksClass because we got {$actionTypes[$onAction]}" . PHP_EOL;

        // How do I get $callbacksClass?

        $this->callbacks[$onAction][] = $callbackMethod;
    }
}
class admin extends plugin {
    public function __construct() {
        $this->registerCallback('onTiny', anActionType);
    }
    public function onTiny() { echo 'tinyAdmin'; }
}
class client extends plugin {
    public function __construct() {
        $this->registerCallback('onTiny', anActionType);
    }
    public function onTiny() { echo 'tinyClient'; }
}
$o = new core();

$callbacksClass should be admin or client. Or am I missing the point here completely and should go about this another way? It should be noted that I will only accept an answer that does not require me to send the classname as an argument to the registerCallback method.

Solution 1

Use get_class():

$this->callbacks[$onAction][] = $callbackMethod;
$className = get_class($this);

// Call callback method
$className->$callbackMethod();

Solution 2

If anyone came here looking for how to get the name of a calling class from another class like I did, check this out https://gist.github.com/1122679

EDIT: pasted code

function get_calling_class() {

    //get the trace
    $trace = debug_backtrace();

    // Get the class that is asking for who awoke it
    $class = $trace[1]['class'];

    // +1 to i cos we have to account for calling this function
    for ( $i=1; $i<count( $trace ); $i++ ) {
        if ( isset( $trace[$i] ) ) // is it set?
             if ( $class != $trace[$i]['class'] ) // is it a different class
                 return $trace[$i]['class'];
    }
}

EG

class A {
    function t() {
        echo get_calling_class();
    }
}

class B {
    function x() {
        $a = new A;
        $a->t();
    }
}

$b = new B;
$b->x(); // prints B

Solution 3

You should really do something like:

$this->registerCallback(array($this, 'onTiny'), anActionType);

That is how PHP works with handles to object methods.

Solution 4

From PHP 8+ you can use static::class rather than get_class($this).

This one is also auto-fixed with PHP Code Sniffer and rule SlevomatCodingStandard.Classes.ModernClassNameReference

View more solutions

Comments

[Theodore R. Smith]

That's how the PHP internal callback functions (like preg_replace_callback) work, but not his class. His class would break if he used that syntax.

[Matthew]

He should change his class to work with normal PHP callbacks, unless there's a very good reason not to.

[Mark Tomlin]

It's exactly what I was looking for. :)

[user23127]

This does not return the calling class, just the class of $this. If you call registerCallback with another class it would fail. Either make registerCallback protected or at use matthews approach.

[Arxeiss]

You can also use static::class instead of get_class($this). Works only in PHP 8+ if I'm not wrong

[Mark Tomlin]

Ah, nice thanks for the update on this!