Magic Methods inside Magento are methods that are called to check, retrieve, set, or unset data. So, basically, you can fetch any data from the protected $_data array in an object simply by calling an appropriate Magic Method.
How it works is basically through the use of the Varien_Object class. Inside this class, it utilizes the __call() method as a last resort whenever it cannot find a method you called. The details look like :
/**
* Set/Get attribute wrapper
*
* @param string $method
* @param array $args
* @return mixed
*/
public function __call($method, $args)
{
switch (substr($method, 0, 3)) {
case 'get' :
//Varien_Profiler::start('GETTER: '.get_class($this).'::'.$method);
$key = $this->_underscore(substr($method,3));
$data = $this->getData($key, isset($args[0]) ? $args[0] : null);
//Varien_Profiler::stop('GETTER: '.get_class($this).'::'.$method);
return $data;
case 'set' :
//Varien_Profiler::start('SETTER: '.get_class($this).'::'.$method);
$key = $this->_underscore(substr($method,3));
$result = $this->setData($key, isset($args[0]) ? $args[0] : null);
//Varien_Profiler::stop('SETTER: '.get_class($this).'::'.$method);
return $result;
case 'uns' :
//Varien_Profiler::start('UNS: '.get_class($this).'::'.$method);
$key = $this->_underscore(substr($method,3));
$result = $this->unsetData($key);
//Varien_Profiler::stop('UNS: '.get_class($this).'::'.$method);
return $result;
case 'has' :
//Varien_Profiler::start('HAS: '.get_class($this).'::'.$method);
$key = $this->_underscore(substr($method,3));
//Varien_Profiler::stop('HAS: '.get_class($this).'::'.$method);
return isset($this->_data[$key]);
}
throw new Varien_Exception("Invalid method ".get_class($this)."::".$method."(".print_r($args,1).")");
}
Every Model in Magento basically derives from this class so you can use magic methods (just about) anywhere.
Let’s take a simple example. You are fetching a product name within a class. You call the method:
$this->getName();
Hope this will help you. Thanks
