Accessing PHP Class Method in Joomla

Question

There is an example Hello Word component in Joomla.

In Models:

class HellowWorldModelHelloWorld extends JModel
{
Protected $message;

Public function getMsg()
{
if (!isset($this->message))
{
$this->message = 'Hello World';
}
return $this->message;
}
}

in Views:

class HelloWorldViewHelloWorld extends JViewLegacy
{

    function display($tpl = null)
    {
        $this->msg = $this->get('Msg');

        if (count($errors=$this->get('Errors')))
        {
            JLog::add(implode('<br/>',$errors),JLog::WARNING, 'jerror');

            return false;
        }

        parent::display($tpl);
    }
}

Now my question is how this works, as far as I have learned, I can't make it out the below code

$this->msg = $this->get('Msg');

First $this->msg - msg property is not defined anywhere in the class or in the parent class. So how msg is get defined or set by directly accessing $this->msg

Second the method in the model is defined as function getMsg() . So I think it should be accessible as $this-getMsg() (but it doesn't work) but it is being accessed as $this-get('Msg') and it is working fine.

A detailed answer with example will help me properly understand what I am missing.

Answer 1

Not sure how detailed I can make this, but executing $this->msg = $this->get('Msg ) amounts to executing function getMsg() that is located in the model.

So, in your View, $this->msg = $this->get('Msg') will populate the variable $this->msg with whatever is returned by the function getMsg() in the Model.