call_user_method doesn't seem to allow the called method to modify it's own viriables and what not. It's as though it's copying an object instead of referencing the one specified. 

This is the same bug reported in Bug #6347. There weren't any additionally open bugs, but I'm using 4.0.4pl1 and I do not see a working solution yet. 

The original script follows. I modified it for a command line implementation (took out all the HTML):

----------- Example 1 ------------
class test
    {
        var $a=0;

        function increase()
        {
            $this->a++;
            echo "a is now: ".$this->a."\n";
        }

    }


    $t = new test();

    echo "Direct calls:\n";
    $t->increase();
    $t->increase();
    $t->increase();

    echo "\n\nIndirect calls:\n";

    call_user_method ("increase", $t);
    call_user_method ("increase", $t);
    call_user_method ("increase", $t);


this script should increment $t 6 times. It produces the following output:

Direct calls:
a is now: 1
a is now: 2
a is now: 3


Indirect calls:
a is now: 4
a is now: 4
a is now: 4



I also wrote a script to do something similar, and it follows. I call "call_user_method" both within the class (using $this) and outside the class.

----------------- Example 2 -------------
class MyClass {
   var $my_Var = "";

   function MyClass ($value = "") {
      $this->my_Var = $value;
      print("my_Var set to " . $this->my_Var . "\n");
   }

   function change ($value = "") {
      print("changing to " . $value . "\n");
      call_user_method("MyClass", &$this, "2");
   }

   function show () {
      print("my_Var is " . $this->my_Var . "\n");
   }
}

$mine = new MyClass("1");
$mine->show();
$mine->change("2");
$mine->show();
call_user_method("MyClass", $mine, "3");
$mine->show();

This should produce the following output:

my_Var set to 1
my_Var is 1
changing to 2
my_Var set to 2
my_Var is 2
my_Var set to 3
my_Var is 3


However it produces this:

my_Var set to 1
my_Var is 1
changing to 2
my_Var set to 2
my_Var is 1
my_Var set to 3
my_Var is 1