Thank you for taking the time to write to us, but this is not
a bug. Please double-check the documentation available at
http://www.php.net/manual/ and the instructions on how to report
a bug at http://bugs.php.net/how-to-report.php

.

I have no idea why this bug is closed as 'bogus'. Just because the documentation 
states it is a certain way does not mean that it is right.

I, for one, believe that it should be possible to create both a static and a 
member function with the same name. There would never be any confusion as to 
which function should be called due to the difference of using the :: or -> 
operator.

I agree with martijntje and nick.telford - the static function and normal function of the same name shouldn't have any conflict, and it would be extremely helpful to be able to define the same function for use both statically and non-statically.

In the meantime, I'm going to try using __call() and __callStatic() to pretend like this feature actually exists.

Yeah this would be really helpful. I hope anybody of the PHP team will implement 
this kind of "stupid" feature. If not them please provide a "cool" solution for 
using static and non-static functions.

Same here!  This is a very useful pattern in other languages, where the same method name can be used in both static and non-static contexts.

For example, a search() method in static context could create a new result object, while the non-static form would search within an existing result set.

While it is possible to mimic this sort of behaviour by first creating a "blank" object, it leads to dual-purpose methods (a big "if" statement), resulting in messy, unmaintainable code.  Why arbitrarily force developers to violate good OOP practices ?

I also support this proposal. On numerous occasions throughout my career writing 
PHP I have found a need for this. While there are workarounds that work, they are 
all fairly verbose, convoluted, and/or difficult to follow. Please consider 
reopening this!

For the record, there's no way this can be implemented as it stands: for backward compatibility reasons, instance methods can be called statically, so the name has to be distinct to disambiguate between static and instance methods. The call type is not enough.

aharvey@php.net :

What would the impacts be of deprecating static calls to non-static methods? They would seem to not make much sense, since any uses of $this inside the method (which would be pretty typical since it is a non-static method) would fail with "Fatal error: Using $this when not in object context". What is the value of being able to attempt a static call on a non-static method?

It breaks compatibility with any PHP 4 compatible code that uses static method calls. That's (obviously) less important than it once was, but there's still plenty of legacy code out there.

aharvey@php.net:

Sure, go Microsoft's way and move forward by staying behind for the sake of 
"compatibility".

Please explain why, "As of PHP 5.3.3, methods with the same name as the last 
element of a namespaced class name will no longer be treated as constructor.". If 
PHP wont even initialize a "compatible" PHP 4 class anymore, how is it relevant to 
preserve instance methods being called statically?

If a class is namespaced, by definition it isn't PHP 4 compatible.

The "backward compatibility" should set to deprecated any static call of object 
method, and use it IF NO static method with the same name exist.

I use static method and object method with same name in lot of paterns, it's 
useful in lot of case.

I've got to add my vote to this feature.

My use case consists of data validation methods. If called statically the 
validation tests are limited to things like string length, contents, etc. If 
called on an object it would include those tests (probably calling the static 
form of itself) and also comparative tests to other object conditions.

I sympathize with backwards compatibility but sometimes you have to push 
forward. Case and point, some people I know are working with a Java-based system 
that doesn't support Java 7, so when building new servers they have to 
explicitly install an older version. Cutting a line between major PHP versions 
seems similarly viable.

I'd also cite Magic Quotes which are completely removed in 5.4, which could 
similarly break older PHP4 compatibility. The precedent is set.

Failing all that, how about a configuration option?

We *can not* have static and non-static methods with the same name. This is *not* just a backwards compatibility concern.

I think the issue here is that you got the meaning of the :: operator wrong. :: is not a "static access operator", it's a "scope resolution operator". It calls a method (or accesses a property) in a certain scope.

E.g. Foo::bar() calls the method bar() in the scope of class Foo. bar() here can be any method.

A "static" method just means that the method does not need $this. The Foo::bar() call will only work if
 a) the method is static or
 b) the method is non-static and we have a $this.

The distinction between "static access operator" and "scope resolution operator" is important and helps you understand why some things are as they are. For example, if you want to access a parent method, then what do you write?
parent::foo(). This means that you call foo() in the parent scope.

I get that people might argue whether "calling non-static methods with ::" is useful in the general case, but calling parent methods is something everybody should understand and find useful. And using that example it's also easy to see why you couldn't have the same static and non-static method. Consider this small example:

    class A {
        public function foo() { echo 'non-static'; }
        public static function foo() { echo 'static'; }
    }
    class B {
        public function bar() { echo parent::foo(); }
    }
    (new B)->bar(); // What do you get?

Allowing static and non-static methods of the same name would require us to completely change the concept of scope-resolution and find a different way to call parent methods etc.

So, just to say it again: Removing "::"-calls to non-static methods is *not* just a backwards compatibility issue, it would also cause problems with other, currently used and encouraged language features.

Another thing that might help the understanding (apart from interpreting :: as scope-resolution) is not seeing static and non-static methods as distinct method types. Rather they are the same and "static" is just another method modifier like "public" or "final":

You probably wouldn't ask to have "an abstract method and a final method of the same name", right? Asking for a non-static and static method of the same name makes similarly little sense. "static" just means "doesn't need $this" and nothing more.

On a related note, this "static" modifier is also available for closures (i.e. you can write "$foo = static function() { ... }") and also means the same there, that the closure does not need $this. Prefixing a closure with "static" does not make it some kind of wholly different function type, it's just a modifier. Same for the static methods ;)

I hope things are a bit clearer now.

@nikic@php.net:

While what you write is all technically correct, I think it comes down to this 
being the problem:

":: is not a "static access operator", it's a "scope resolution operator". It 
calls a method (or accesses a property) in a certain scope."

Conceptually that one operator is trying to do too much. That "certain scope" 
it's trying to use isn't chosen by the programmer; it's chosen by the context; 
by where it's being used. That's presumptuous and an unnecessary limitation.

"::" is (AFAIK) the only way to access specifically static resources in one 
context, but then is also used to reference the resources of special names in 
other contexts.

Clearly people want to be able to call the same method name in both an object 
and static scope. It's the same reason people like function overloading: they 
have logic that accomplishes the same goal but done differently--this time based  
on scope. And we'd rather not dirty our code with resource names named 
differently just to identify scope.

If the :: operator can't consistently serve this purpose because it's also 
having to accommodate "parent" and other special names, then maybe we just need 
a new operator specifically for calling methods in a static scope and ONLY for 
doing that. 

The more I think about this the more I think :: is just broken because it's 
treated inconsistently. There's probably good reasons I'm not thinking of, but 
it seems :: could have always meant "static scope" and "->" could have always 
meant "object scope"; and "parent->resource" would have been valid right 
alongside "parent::resource", each accessing the parent's resource in 
legitimately different scopes.

So leave :: as it is for backwards compatibility.
Add support for "->" on special names for object scope and a new operator 
specifically for static scope. Then we'll be able to define both object-scope 
and static-scope versions of the same resources and we'll have operators to 
access each consistently.

Ultimately it's not a huge deal. It'd just be nice to be able to use the same 
names in both scopes. But we can at least achieve the functionality for now by 
naming everything "$staticVariable" and "staticMethod()". It's just really 
gross.

My thoughts echo those of dmittner, while I think we all acknowledge the need for parent::method() functionality, I don't see why that small detail should invalidate this popular feature request.  This seems like a limitation borrowed from C++, where it was a necessary evil of supporting multiple inheritance.  PHP does not have MI and thus there was never a need for such a contrived "scope resolution" operator when something like Java's "super" would have sufficed.

I can recognize that its usage dates back to the very beginning of PHP OOP, and it would be problematic to change the :: operator with all the existing code out there.  Why can't we choose a new operator for pure static calls and get on with it ?  It sounds like that would allow same-named static methods without ambiguity, while allowing the :: operator to continue as-is.

@dmittner:

> ":: is not a "static access operator", it's a "scope resolution operator". It 
> calls a method (or accesses a property) in a certain scope."
>
> Conceptually that one operator is trying to do too much. That "certain scope" 
> it's trying to use isn't chosen by the programmer; it's chosen by the
> context; by where it's being used. That's presumptuous and an unnecessary
> limitation.

Maybe I didn't phrase that well enough. By "in a certain scope" I meant the class before the :: operator. In Foo::bar() the bar() method is called in the Foo scope. So, as you can see the scope *is* chosen by the programmer and no presumption takes place.

> "::" is (AFAIK) the only way to access specifically static resources in one 
> context, but then is also used to reference the resources of special names in 
> other contexts.

Again, this might be a misunderstanding. The scope-resolution behavior is *not* restricted to special names. It's not just about parent::foo() [and self::foo() and static::foo()], I just used that as an example as it is the most commonly used. You can do a scope-resolution call on any class in the inheritance hierarchy (e.g. a grandparent). Actually right now you could even do the call to using a scope that is outside the hierarchy, but thankfully we'll be removing that anti-feature in the next version.

What we could obviously do - as you suggest - is strictly decouple scoped static method calls and scoped non-static method calls, by having a Foo::bar() syntax and a Foo->bar() syntax (e.g. parent->bar()).

In my eyes that's a bad idea. We'd be adding a lot of new complexity (by making static methods *actually* different and not just a modifier of normal methods) only for the very small gain of having statics and non-statics of the same name.

By the way, I just looked at a few other languages and it seems like nearly all went the same way as PHP. C++ doesn't allow it, C# doesn't allow it, Java doesn't allow it. Python doesn't really have statics, but it has the @staticmethod decorator and with that it's obviously not allowed either. The only language I looked at and which *does* support this is Ruby.

So, I really don't see a solid case for this feature request.

Well, given the lack of similar support in other languages I can see this is an uphill 
battle not worth a long fight, so I'll leave with this departing thought (plus I doubt 
this is a proper place to debate merits of functionality changes):

When I looked up this similar issue on other languages, I found people asking about it 
for Java and C#, and the responses fundamentally came down to the same thing: the 
compiler doesn't understand it.

But it was clear that this is something people want in many languages, and I'd put 
forth that all of them doing it poorly isn't justification not to lead the charge to 
building a better convention.

Fact is, static scope exists separate of instance scope for a reason. And if we're 
accepting that reason as enough to support both scopes' existence to begin with, why 
isn't that reason enough to take the next logical step and support resource signatures 
of the same name for each? Obviously using :: is out of the question and similar 
limitations in other languages is likely why it's not possible in them, but if we have 
new operators specifically to separate these, why not do it? Maybe it would put 
pressure on other languages to add similar support.

The only remaining argument against it I could see would be one of code cleanliness and 
possible confusion having two methods with the same signature, but I'd have to dismiss 
that as minor (especially compared to overloading signatures in other languages) when 
there's a clear "static" presence on the method and the new operator on any calls to 
it.

And with that, good day and happy programming.

Though this is old, I would like to add my own two cents.

I realize that parent methods are accessed using :: as well, and this would 
create an ambiguity if we allowed same name usage. The problem, however, is not 
same name usage. The problem is that the keyword parent is the same as the 
keyword $this, and as such, it seems more logically sound to use parent-
>function than parent::function. Using the scope resolution operator logically 
implies the need to do so. But if we treat the parent keyword as though it is an 
identifier, the same way we treat object names and $this, then we can use the 
arrow for member functions and the scope resolution operator for static 
functions without ambiguity. If anything, the ambiguity / inconsistency is the 
use of the scope resolution operator to access member functions (which is 
exactly what parent::function does).

In short, the usage of the scope resolution operator for parent member functions 
is a logical inconsistency, and the reason that parent::static and 
parent::member ambiguities would arise from same name capability is because of 
this seemingly incorrect application of scope resolution for accessing parent 
member functions, when a perfectly useful operator (->) already exists.

In order to make compilers / interpreters handle this odd situation, they merely 
need to identify what things like parent and $this refer to first, which then 
clarifies all issues that would arise from name ambiguity, as it then allows :: 
and -> to be distinct.