Accessing private variables from within a closure.

Question

I'm trying to reference a private variable of an object from within a closure. The code below would seem to work, but it complains Fatal error: Cannot access self:: when no class scope is active in test.php on line 12 and Fatal error: Using $this when not in object context in test.php on line 20.

Any ideas how to accomplish the same results using a closure while keeping the variables private and without making helper functions (defeating the whole idea of a private variable).

class MyClass
{

    static private $_var1;
    private $_var2;

    static function setVar1( $value )
    {
        $closure = function () use ( $value ) {
            self::$_var1 = $value;
        };
        $closure();
    }

    function setVar2( $value )
    {
        $closure = function () use ( $value ) {
            $this->_var2 = $value;
        };
        $closure();
    }

}

MyClass::setVar1( "hello" ); //doesn't work

$myclass = new MyClass;
$myclass->setVar2( "hello" ); //doesn't work

Answer 1

This is currently not directly possible (but will probably be possible in the next version of PHP). In particularly, closures have no associated scope, so they cannot access private and protected members.

You can, however, use references:

<?php
class MyClass
{

    static private $_var1;
    private $_var2;

    static function setVar1( $value )
    {
        $field =& self::$_var1;
        $closure = function () use ( $value,  &$field ) {
            $field = $value;
        };
        $closure();
    }

    function setVar2( $value )
    {
        $field =& $this->_var2;
        $closure = function () use ( $value, &$field ) {
            $field = $value;
        };
        $closure();
    }

}

MyClass::setVar1( "hello" );

$myclass = new MyClass;
$myclass->setVar2( "hello" );

Answer 2

Closures have no concept of $this or self -- they are not tied to objects in that way. This means that you would have to pass the variables through the use clause... something like:

$_var1 =& self::$_var1;
$closure = function() use ($value, &$_var1) {
  $_var1 = $value;
};

$_var2 =& $this->_var2;
$closure = function() use ($value, &$_var2) {
  $_var2 = $value;
};

I haven't tested the above code, but I believe it to be correct.