Can the __CLASS__ keyword be defined or accessed in a parent class and return the child class it is called from?

The __CLASS__ keyword in PHP cannot be defined or accessed in a parent class to return the child class it is called from. However, you can achieve similar functionality by using late static binding with the static::class keyword. This allows you to access the class name of the child class where the method is called. 

class ParentClass {
    public function getClass() {
        return static::class;
    }
}

class ChildClass extends ParentClass {
}

$child = new ChildClass();
echo $child->getClass(); // Output: ChildClass

Keywords

__CLASS__ parent class child class inheritance object-oriented programming

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