It sounds like you answered your own question. get_class will get you the class name. It is procedural and maybe that is what is causing the confusion. Take a look at the php documentation for get_class
Here is their example:
<?php
class foo
{
function name()
{
echo "My name is " , get_class($this) , "\n";
}
}
// create an object
$bar = new foo();
// external call
echo "Its name is " , get_class($bar) , "\n"; // It's name is foo
// internal call
$bar->name(); // My name is foo
To make it more like your example you could do something like:
<?php
class MyClass
{
public static function getClass()
{
return get_class();
}
}
Now you can do:
$className = MyClass::getClass();
This is somewhat limited, however, because if my class is extended it will still return 'MyClass'. We can use get_called_class instead, which relies on Late Static Binding, a relatively new feature, and requires PHP >= 5.3.
<?php
class MyClass
{
public static function getClass()
{
return get_called_class();
}
public static function getDefiningClass()
{
return get_class();
}
}
class MyExtendedClass extends MyClass {}
$className = MyClass::getClass(); // 'MyClass'
$className = MyExtendedClass::getClass(); // 'MyExtendedClass'
$className = MyExtendedClass::getDefiningClass(); // 'MyClass'
public $__CLASS__ = __CLASS__;dance with every other class...