Many frameworks these days allow for elegant 'chaining' of methods. This typically looks similar to $this->db->get()->users(); Want to know how to do this? we will show you how in the steps below.

Final Result

 <?php
class Shape {
  
  /**
   * Name.
   * 
   * @var string
   */
  public $name = 'square';
  
  /**
   * Color.
   * 
   * @var string
   */
  public $color = 'black';
  
  /**
   * Width in pixels.
   * 
   * @var int
   */
  public $width = 0;  
  
  /**
   * Height in pixels.
   * 
   * @var int
   */
  public $height = 0;  
  
  /**
   * Set the shape name.
   * 
   * @param string $name
   */
  public function setName($name) {
    $this->name = $name;
    
    return $this;
  }
  
  /**
   * Set the shape color.
   * 
   * @param string $color
   */
  public function setColor($color) {
    $this->color = $color;
    
    return $this;
  }
  
  /**
   * Set the shape dimensions.
   * 
   * @param int $width
   * 
   * @param int $height
   */
  public function setDimensions($width, $height) {
    $this->width = $width;
    $this->height = $height;
    
    return $this;
  }
  
  /**
   * Display our object.
   */
  public function display() {
    echo @<< Name: {$this->name}
      
 Color: {$this->color} 
      
 Dimensions: {$this->width}px x {$this->height}px
DISPLAY;
  }
}

$rectangle = new Shape();
$rectangle->setName('rectangle')->setColor('red')->setDimensions(100, 
  500)->display();

?> 

First off we simply set the default values for a generic shape object. Then we provide several methods such as the one below, which simply assign a variable to the corresponding property. This could be done with public properties such as $rectangle->name = 'rectangle'. However this is to demonstrate chainable methods. Each method which is mutative (modifies the object), and which does not need to return a specific value, could potentially be chainable, simply by returning its-self (return $this).

<?php
  public function setName($name) {
    $this->name = $name;
    return $this;
  }
?>

We then need a quick method to display our object. the '@<<<' syntax below may look intimidating, this is called heredoc, which is comparable to a simple string using double quotes "". The '@' character suppresses notices if a variable is not present such as if I were to try and output $this->nothingHere. '<<