Method call without class or object name prefix

[Phoncible]

I've seen it done in practice where a method is called just by it's method name, without the classname. or objectname. prefix.
I.e. a method used like: someMethod();
not
class.someMethod(); or object.someMethod();
Also, the method I saw used in this manner was not declared static. It was also in an imported package, not from the class it was being called in. It looked something like:
public boolean method(){...}

When I tried to reproduce the effect I couldn't get it to work, at all. If method is non-static i get the "blah blah blah static context non-static call" errors. If method is static is says i need the class name prefix to call properly. What's going on that just using method name is allowed and how can I make it do that (even if it's unnecessary I just want to know the how's and why's).

[Fou-Lu]

The error you have there is that you are trying to use a static method from a dynamic context. This cannot be done since it doesn't know what you are trying to do - non-static methods cannot be called statically as they require a context of an object in which to work.
See this example:

PHP Code:


public class StaticTest
{
    public static void testStatic()
    {
        staticCall("This is a static call"); // Chain from a static to a static
    }
    
    public void testDynamic()
    {
        dynamicCall("This is a dynamic call"); // Chain from a dynamic to a dynamic
    }
    
    public static void staticCall(String sStatic)
    {
        System.out.println(sStatic);
    }
    
    public void dynamicCall(String sDynamic)
    {
        System.out.println(sDynamic);
    }
    
    public static void main(String... argv)
    {
        StaticTest s = new StaticTest();
        
        s.testDynamic(); // requires a object context since this is static method
        testStatic(); // This is a static method so no explicit class could be chosen
    }
} 


Personally, I resolve all methods and members to either the class name or this. I do this simply because languages like PHP to not accept variable masking in OOP, so they are required to resolve the method to the class or context.