Mentioned non-existing function RecursiveIteratorIterator::getChildren()

[martin-kordas]

From manual page: https://php.net/recursiveiteratoriterator.beginchildren

There is no RecursiveIteratorIterator::getChildren() function on RecursiveIteratorIterator object, only ::callGetChildren().

[kamil-tekiela]

Thanks for that issue. Would you by any chance know how this should be resolved? Should we document getChildren()? I don't have much experience with Spl iterators myself, but I can say that I can definitely call getChildren() on RecursiveIteratorIterator. I don't see it being inherited either. Reflection doesn't show that method either. Is it a magic method?

[martin-kordas]

It seems to me that callGetChildren() calls getChildren() internally. See the following snippet:

$rdi = new RecursiveDirectoryIterator($folder);
$rii = new RecursiveIteratorIterator($rdi);
foreach ($rii as $filename => $file) {
  $rii->callGetChildren();
}

If $folder contains a regular file (not directory), it has no children and UnexpectedValueException is thrown with stack trace reporting that callGetChildren() and then getChildren() have been called. However, there is not any magic __call() method in the stack trace. This is strange, because I also do not see getChildren() method in reflection preview, although it is possible to call it. (Tested with PHP 7.2.30, Win10 x64).

There is even one more docs page where getChildren() method is mentioned: https://www.php.net/manual/en/recursiveiteratoriterator.construct.php

In my opinion, callGetChildren() should only be documented because it is the preferred method intended for overriding.

[nikic]

RecursiveIteratorIterator forwards all unknown method calls to the underlying RecursiveIterator, see https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/a733b1ada7895f6fa5e349755a878cae9189e3f5/ext/spl/spl_iterators.c#L892. This doesn't use __call(), but rather an internal overloading mechanism.

(Why? Because SPL.)

[cmb69]

RecursiveIteratorIterator forwards all unknown method calls to the underlying RecursiveIterator, […]. This doesn't use __call(), but rather an internal overloading mechanism.

I think we should document this in the introduction section.

[kamil-tekiela]

Does that mean that RecursiveIteratorIterator implements RecursiveIterator? Or does it instantiate it internally?