In PHP, can you instantiate an object and call a method on the same line?
The feature you have asked for is available from PHP 5.4. Here is the list of new features in PHP 5.4:
http://php.net/manual/en/migration54.new-features.php
And the relevant part from the new features list:
Class member access on instantiation has been added, e.g. (new Foo)->bar().
You cannot do what you are asking ; but you can "cheat", using the fact that, in PHP, you can have a function that has the same name as a class ; those names won't conflict.
So, if you declared a class like this :
class Test { public function __construct($param) { $this->_var = $param; } public function myMethod() { return $this->_var * 2; } protected $_var;}
You can then declare a function that returns an instance of that class -- and has exactly the same name as the class :
function Test($param) { return new Test($param);}
And now, it becomes possible to use a one-liner, like you asked -- only thing is you are calling the function, thus not using new :
$a = Test(10)->myMethod();var_dump($a);
And it works : here, I'm getting :
int 20
as output.
And, better, you can put some phpdoc on your function :
/** * @return Test */function Test($param) { return new Test($param);}
This way, you'll even have hints in your IDE -- at least, with Eclipse PDT 2.x ; see the screeshot :
Edit 2010-11-30 : Just for information, a new RFC has been submitted, a few days ago, that proposes to add this feature to one of the future versions of PHP.
See : Request for Comments: Instance and method call/property access
So, maybe doing things like these will be possible in PHP 5.4 or another future version :
(new foo())->bar()(new $foo())->bar(new $bar->y)->x(new foo)[0]