Why Does Yii Allow Me To Access The Private $This->_Property, With $This->Property?

Yii 1.1 General Discussion
1

I’m not sure what’s happening here, perhaps someone has a clue:

On my layout I have this:




<div id="main-content" class="<?= $this->getMainClass(); ?>">

On components>controller class I have this:


 private $_mainCssClass;


    public function setMainCssClass($className) {


     if (is_string($className)) {

        $this->_mainCssClass = $className;

     } else {

        quickDump($className);

     }

    }


    public function getMainCssClass() {

     return $this->_mainClass;

    }

What I’m not getting is, despite the fact that we are using accessors, and the mainCssClass property has an underscore and it’s declared private, I can access it trough:


$this->MainCssClass;



The same as: $this->getMainCssClass()
2

Hi,

There is no problem.

You do not access this->_mainClass, you access getMainCssClass() (which is public, ok). Then getMainCssClass() access the private property. getMainCssClass() is a method of the class, so it can access the private variable.

3

mem,

you will learn a lot with this article: http://phpmaster.com/yii-under-the-hood-1/

It explains the inner workings of Yii components. :)