PHP 5 supports the overloading of the %__get()% %__set()% methods, which are responsible for being called when a particular class variable is requested but doesn't explicitally exist. 10); function __get($varname) { return $this->testvar[$name]; } function __set($varname, $value) { $this->testvar[$name] = $value; } } $varinst = new anotherfoo(); $varinst->test++; echo "The value of 'test' is {$varinst->test}"; ?> ]]>