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2 Answers
Niki Molnar
25,698 Points-> is called the object operator and is used in objects to access the methods and properties of that object. At its basic level, it gets or sets an object variable within a class or other object, e.g. an array. The object is always on the left hand side, before the ->
$foo->bar(); // Calls a function called bar() within the object $foo
$foo->bar = 'Jim'; // Accesses a property called bar in the object $foo and sets it to Jim
Ezra Siton
12,644 PointsThe answer above.
In general : Its hard to 100% understand this issue without some OOP knowledge:
Related treehouse course:
https://teamtreehouse.com/library/objectoriented-php-basics-2 https://teamtreehouse.com/library/objectoriented-php-basics-2/understanding-classes/accessing-methods
In other Programming languages you find the use of dot (.) instead of ->.(If you know the consept of dot maybe it will help you to understand this issue)
// javascript
Math.random();
Related links:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14037290/what-does-this-mean-in-php-or