Child Static Member from Parent Static Method

[rpanning]

From what I've tried, there seems to be NO way to get a childs static member value from a parents static method. Does anyone know of a workaround for this issue?

It would be nice if there would be a child keyword for abstract classes. Ex:

abstract class aParent {
    public static function get_member() {
        return child::$member;
    }
}

class aChild extends aParent {
    public static $member = 'value';
}

[NogDog]

Children know all about their parents, but parents are ignorant of their children. The only thing I can think of is to pass the name of the child class of interest as a parameter, then you could reference any static values of that class via $className::staticMemberName.

However, I have to be a bit suspicious of any design that requires such references. I mean, an abstract method could be extended by any number of other classes, so how would you know which child's static members you wanted to reference unless you did, in fact, specify that specific extending class?

[rpanning]

I realize that there would be many logical things to work out but it would just be handy. The reason I ask this question is towards overriding static data the same way you would normal members. Ex:

abstract class aParent {
    public $member = 'aParent';

public function print_me() {
    print($this->member);
}
}

class aChild extends aParent {
    public $member = 'aChild';
}

$object = new aChild;
$object->print_me();  // Prints aChild because aParent was overrided

[rpanning]

The only thing I could come up with is overriding the method itself or a different method which calls the parent static method and passing the childs member value. Ex:

abstract class aParent {
    abstract public static function me_first();

protected static function me($member) {
    // Do something...
}
}

class aChild extends aParent {
    public static $member = 'aChild';

// Separate method calling parent
public static function me_first() {
    parent::me(self::$member);
}

// Overriding method calling parent
public static function me() {
    parent::me(self::$member);
}
}