Any way of finding out the variable name from the object it contains?

Phire

class Cool {
public function containingName () {}
}

$testvar = new Cool();

echo $testvar->containingName(); // would return "testvar"

Is there any way I can do something like that?

Weedpacket

Variables do not contain objects, they contain references to objects.
Multiple variables might contain references to the same object.
Some references to objects won't be through variables.
(probably most important): You already know this variable is called "testvar" - it's right there in the source code - so why do you need to ask?

NogDog

Off-hand, I don't know of any way unless possibly it could be done via the Reflection API. Then again, it's a bit hard to understand why you'd want to, since you just typed the name at the start of the line, so it's not like you don't know what its name is. 😉

Phire

Well, I provided a simplified example. This is the situation I'm in:

Object 1 contains an array containing references to Object 2.

I need to call a function of Object 1 from the instance of Object 2 which is contained inside of an array inside of Object 1. I cannot call the function of Object 1 because I do not know the variable name holding the reference. If I set it to retrieve from a single name, that means it would try to access that single name for every instance of the object. I cannot use a static function because I need the values to be unique per instance. I need some way of going backwards by finding out the variable name that holds the reference to the object and then finding out the variable name that holds the reference to that array. This probably sounds confusing. I think I will just pass a reference from Object 1 when creating Object 2 in the array by setting a property in the constructor.

NogDog

Phire wrote:
...This probably sounds confusing....

Yes, it does. 🙂 When things get that confusing, it's usually time to rethink and refactor.

...I think I will just pass a reference from Object 1 when creating Object 2 in the array by setting a property in the constructor.

Since I'm still confused, I'll buy that. 😉