setter - PHP set magic method with array as names

Question

I am creating a class which I will use to store and load some settings. Inside the class all settings are stored in an array. The settings can be nested, so the settings array is a multidimensional array. I want to store and load the settings using the magic methods __get and __set, so the settings can act as class members. However, since I'm using nested methods, I can't get the __set method to work when I try to access a nested setting.

The class is like this:

class settings
{
    private $_settings = array();

    //some functions to fill the array

    public function __set($name, $value)
    {
        echo 'inside the __set method';
        //do some stuff
    }
}

And the code to use this class:

$foo = new settings();
//do some stuff with the class, so the internal settings array is as followed:
//array(
//    somename => somevalue
//    bar => array (
//               baz = someothervalue
//               qux = 42
//                 )
//     )
$foo->somename = something; //this works, __set method is called correctly
$foo->bar['baz'] = somethingelse; //Doesn't work, __set method isn't called at all

How can I get this last line to work?

Answer 1

When accessing an array using this method, it actually goes through __get instead. In order to set a parameter on that array that was returned it needs to be returned as a reference: &__get($name)

Unless, what you mean is that you want each item that is returned as an array to act the same way as the parent object, in which case you should take a look at Zend Framework's Zend_Config object source for a good way to do that. (It returns a new instance of itself with the sub-array as the parameter).