scope of class atts in methods

Hi all, a quick question about using PHP's objects, specifically in terms of the scope of class attributes: Normally, in PHP, a variable in a function is local to that function and is NOT a reference to a similarly-named variable outside the function, right? To the best of my knowledge, there are several ways to allow access to an outside variable from within a function: 1) Declare the variable as global with the "global" keyword 2) Access it from the $GLOBALS array 3) Pass the variable to the function as a parameter and probably others, but it's really beside the point because I don't have a question about normal functions. What I am really wondering is if there is any formal "rules" about the scope of Class Attributes in Class definitions and in methods -- they do not behave identical to PHP's functions. For instance, I can access a class attribute from within a method of that class without explicitly declaring that attribute global inside the method, or without explicitly passing that attribute as a parameter to the method. So they seem to behave as if they are always global. But if I want to make a change to that class attribute from within a method, am I affecting a copy of the class attribute, or the class attribute itself? The reason I ask is because I have a Class that is behaving oddly. Here is the relevant part of the code: Class Folder { // declare class attributes var $contents = array(); // a method to add to $contents function add_to_contents($item) { $this->contents[] = $item; } // a method to remove from $contents function rm_item($index) { unset($this->contents[$index]); } } The crux of my question is, does this have the effect that it appears to have? I am hoping someone with thorough understanding of the internals of PHP can give me a definitive answer. My tests are coming up with strange results, so I haven't figured it out on my own yet. Thanks in advance, Erik PS: FYI, if you unset an array element, there is still an index for that element -- the array does not reindex itself. A good solution to this, that a fellow lister named Nathan gave me, is to array_push() a dummy var onto the end of the array and then array_pop() it back off -- this reindexes the array. But I am finding that somehow my arrays are "remembering" old elements that I could have sworn I unset, so I am asking the above question about the scope of class attributes in methods. ---- Erik Price Web Developer Temp Media Lab, H.H. Brown pricee@hhbrown.com