help with inheritance problem -- again

I'm reposting this due to a critical typo in the original... Sorry. ======================= Hi. I'm working with PHP3 and am trying to create some classes. Something isn't working as expected while attempting to access variables in base classes. class my_db { var $host_name, $user_name, $user_pwd, $db_name, $connection; function my_db() { $this->db_connect(); } function db_connect() # this works ok { $this->ts = time(); $this->host_name = ... $this->user_name = ... $this->user_pwd = ... $this->db_name = ... $this->connection = @mysql_connect( $this->host_name, $this->user_name, $this->user_pwd ) or die( "Couldn't connect to host" ); $db = @mysql_select_db( $this->db_name, $this->connection ) or die("Couldn't select database" ); return $this->connection; } } # my_db class base_table { var $db; // constructor // pass this an instance of a mydb object function db_table( $db_obj ) { $db = $db_obj; } function so_something_with_base() { // here, I want to access $this->db->connection in base class, // but I cannot seem to get it. $bdb2 = $this->db; $conn = $bdb2->connection; # <<--------------- line 116 . . . } . . . } # base_tbl class derived_tbl extends base_table { // constructor // pass this an instance of an mydb object function derived_tbl( $db_obj ) { $this->base_table( $db_obj ); # is this proper syntax? # It seems to work... } } //===================== called in PHP3 script like so: . . . . $mydb = new my_db(); # this works ok $d_tbl = new derived_tbl( $mydb ); # this _seems_ to work, but... $db2 = $d_tbl->db; # scalar? Should be db object in base_tbl emit("db2->connection = [$db2->connection]<br>"); # <<------- line 55 //===================== Here's what I get trying to run the above script: Warning: Using scalar variable $db2 as an array or object in ..script file.. on line 55 Warning: Object bdb2 not found in classes.php on line 116 All the books I have describe PHP4, with a few caveats for PHP3. Can anybody give me an idea of what's wrong here? Thanks -David