Rename methods with the same name as their class, keywords.

[Ben]

Methods which have the same name as the class they're defined in should be renamed to prevent php from seeing them as the constructor.

I just compiled something like this:

class Main {
    public static function main()
        trace('hello world');
}

Which results in:

PHP Fatal error:  Constructor Main::main() cannot be static in .../Main.php on line 18

This is only relevant for non-namespaced classes in the top package:

As of PHP 5.3.3, methods with the same name as the last element of a namespaced class name will no longer be treated as constructor. This change doesn't affect non-namespaced classes.

[Aleksandr Kuzmenko]

I wonder if it's ok to generate __call() and __callStatic() for cases like this.

class Main {
    public function __hx__main () {        
    }

    public function __call($method, $args) {
        if ($method == 'main')
            return call_user_func_array([$this, '__hx__main'], $args);
        } else {
            //trigger error: Unknown method
        }
    }
}

Without such magic user will get runtime error if he attempts to invoke renamed method on a dynamic var:

var q : Dynamic = new Main();
q.main() //runtime error, because compiler does not know real type of `q` 
         //and we cannot replace `.main()" with `.__hx__main()` in compiletime

__call() solves such issues. But could it potentially introduce some other issues?

[Aleksandr Kuzmenko]

On the other hand dynamic access requires additonal runtime manipulations anyway. We can implement renamed fields resolution as a part of that manipulations.

[Ben]

The first solution would allow the method name to be called from non-haxe code as well. But in the interest of keeping the compiled code clean, I'd go for your second suggestion.

[Aleksandr Kuzmenko]

The third solution could be generating all code in some default namespace (which can be changed with --php-prefix)

[Ben]

That would take care of this problem. But you'll need either of the previous solutions anyway in cases where you must rename a method (for example if someone uses a php reserved keyword as method name).

[Aleksandr Kuzmenko]

Absorbed by #47