$this variable is a pointer to the object making the function call. $this variable is not avialable in static methods. We will learn more about static methods in the next series of tutorials.

Example:

class Customer {
 
   private $name;
 
   public setName($name) {
	$this->name = $name;
   }
 
}
 
$c1 = new Customer();
$c2 = new Customer();
 
$c1->setName(“Sunil”);
$c2->setName(“Vishal”);

In the above example, $c1 and $c2 are two separate Customer objects. Each object has its own memory to store names. But if you see the function setName() is common. During run time, how can it make a difference as to which memory location to use to store the function values. Therefore, it uses the $this variable. As mentioned earlier, $this variable is a pointer to the object making a function call. Therefore when we execute $c1->setName(”Sunil”), $this in the setName() function is a pointer or a reference to the $c1 variable.

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