Laravel 5 Macros: Call and Callstatic

The Macroable trait implements PHP's magic __call method to intercept calls to methods when in object context that do not exist in the current class. If a macro with the given method name is found, it is evaluated and the result returned. If no macro is found with the given name, an instance of BadMethodCallException is thrown.

#Signature

The signature of the __call method is:

1public function __call(
2    $method,
3    $parameters
4);

#Macroable Implementation of PHP's Magic __callStatic Method

The Macroable trait implements PHP's magic __callStatic method to intercept calls to a methods when in static context that do not exist on the target class. If a macro with the given method name is found, it is evaluated and the result returned. If no macro is found with the given name, an instance of BadMethodCallException is thrown.

#Signature

The signature of the __callStatic method is:

1public static function __callStatic(
2    $method,
3    $parameters
4);

#Important Notes On __call and __callStatic

Because Macroable depends on both the __call and __callStatic methods to be available for its own use, it is currently not possible to use the Macroable trait in a class that also requires returning a value from either __call or __callStatic without modifying the parent class's __call or __callStatic methods to accommodate the macro features. However, accommodating the macro features in a class that requires one, or both of the above magic methods is quite simple:

 1use Illuminate\Support\Macroable;
 2
 3class ExampleClass
 4{
 5    use Macroable {
 6        // Because this class also defines a '__call' method, a new
 7        // name has to be given to the traits '__call' method. The
 8        // new name in this case is 'macroCall'.
 9        __call as macroCall;
10    }
11
12    public function __call($method, $parameters)
13    {
14        // This will first check if a macro exists, and if it does
15        // the '__call' function will return the value of the
16        // 'macroCall' function (which is defined in the 'Macroable')
17        // trait.
18        if (static::hasMacro($method))
19        {
20            return $this->macroCall($method, $parameters);
21        }
22
23        // If no macro exists, continue with class-specific
24        // implementation of '__call'.
25    }
26
27}

The above example is actually utilized within the framework itself with the implementation of "\Illuminate\Cache\Repository".

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