Why is this not valid PHP?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
PHP: How to chain method on a newly created object?

I started off with this code:

$page = new Page();

$page->replace_tags(...);

$page->output();

I changed the signature of replace_tags to allow method chaining, by returning $this. Why can I still not write it like this?

new Page()->replace_tags(...)->output();

Or this:

(new Page())->replace_tags(...)->output();

u need to assign your instance to a value before calling its methods — Ben, Jul 27 '11 at 12:09
See the question I linked above, it is a limitation of PHP syntax. You cannot chain a call to "new". — Palantir, Jul 27 '11 at 12:10
@Eric: no you cant. you also cant do things like `$obj->toArray()[0]` — prodigitalson, Jul 27 '11 at 12:11
It will come with PHP5.4, but for now its just not supported, because its just the way it is. — KingCrunch, Jul 27 '11 at 12:13
@prodigitalson: Yeah, that bugged me as well. Is there any documentation on why that doesn't work? — Eric, Jul 27 '11 at 12:14
@Eric: It doesn't work because nobody implemented it yet. No documentation needed for something, that doesn't exists. — KingCrunch, Jul 27 '11 at 12:17

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 27 '11 at 12:10

1

I think you may need to chain the functions on the class instance:

$page = new Page();

$page->replace_tags(...)->output();

answered Jul 27 '11 at 12:10

Tomgrohl

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 27 '11 at 12:10

0

You need to assign the object to a reference first:

$obj = new Page();
$obj->replace_tags(...)->output();

answered Jul 27 '11 at 12:10

prodigitalson

2 Answers2