OO php: static and factory classes

[Charles Curley]

I'd like to build a factory class (all static methods) called Images
that will that create, store, etc. instances of another class,
Image. I can create image and Images, but I have to instantiate Images
in order to call a factory method. This works:


$snark = new Images ();
$countImages = $snark->imageCount ($client_id, $db, __LINE__, __FILE__);


but this does not:

$countImages = $Images->imageCount ($client_id, $db, __LINE__, __FILE__);

The docs say the second should work:

  Declaring class members or methods as static makes them accessible
  without needing an instantiation of the class. A member declared as
  static can not be accessed with an instantiated class object (though
  a static method can).

http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.static.php

Relevant code:


// The factory class for the image class.
class Images
{

...

    public static function imageCount ($client, $db, $line, $file)
    {


PHP verson is Version 5.1.4.

Thanks

-- 

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