Expressions And Operators: New

The new operator allocates memory for an object that is an instance of the specified class. The object is initialized by calling the class's constructor passing it the optional argument list, just like a function call. If the class has no constructor, the constructor that class inherits (if any) is used. For example:

class Point {
  private static int $pointCount = 0; // static property with initializer
  private float $x; // instance property
  private float $y; // instance property

  public function __construct(num $x = 0, num $y = 0) { // instance method
    $this->x = (float)$x; // access instance property
    $this->y = (float)$y; // access instance property
    ++Point::$pointCount; // include new Point in Point count
  }
}

function main(): void {
  $p1 = new Point(); // create Point(0.0, 0.0)
  $p2 = new Point(5, 6.7); // create Point(5.0, 6.7)
}

The result is an object of the type specified.

The new operator may also be used to allocate memory for an instance of a classname type; for example:

final class C {}
function f(classname<C> $clsname): void {
  $w = new $clsname();
}

Any one of the keywords parent, self, and static can be used between the new and the constructor call, as follows. From within a method, the use of static corresponds to the class in the inheritance context in which the method is called. The type of the object created by an expression of the form new static is this. See scope resolution for a discussion of parent, self, and static in this context.