Referencing different static members in

Hi, In the static function "toHtml_table_heading" I want to use a static array $fields, which is defined differently in each implementation. My first trial was to use self::$fields[] to access this array, but this only sees the member of DBTable, not the inherited from DBTable. My second trial was to pass the classnmae thru $classname and to access the correct $fields with $classname::$fields, but that doesn't seem to work. abstract class DBTable { static protected $fields = array(); static function toHtml_table_heading($classname) {

       $fields = $classname::$fields;  // <== syntax error, unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM
      //...

} //... } class DBImplementation extends DBTable { public function intializeClass() {

     self::$fields[] = new Object(1);
     self::$fields[] = new Object(2);

} function __construct() {

     intializeClass()

} }