get function value in a plugin

Question

i'm trying to write my own plugin and new to php to simplify i want to grab a string from the tempalte then do something with it How do i call getMyString() in another function?

EDIT:

class test
{

    public $return_data = "";

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->EE =& get_instance();
        $this->return_data =  $this->getMyString();
    }

    public function getMyString() {
        $tagdata = $this->EE->TMPL->tagdata;
        return "<p>TEST : " . $tagdata . "</p>";
    }

    public function newFuction() {
          $this->return_data = self::getMyString();
    } 
    // usage stuff here

}

Thanks!

Answer 1

$this->return_data = $this->getMyString();

return_data should only be used for the construct method (nod to Derek ;).

In the EE template:

{exp:test}woo hoo{/exp:test}

or

{exp:test:getMyString}woo hoo{/exp:test:getMyString}

I appreciate this is only a test, but you can't return anything from the construct if you're returning stuff from the methods - because the construct will always get called, therefore always return something, then the method will return something - so you'll get incorrect output.

To debug, simply put:

echo "<pre>";var_dump($tagdata);echo "</pre>";

...before the return in the getMyString method.

Your comment mentioned this:

{exp:test} {exp:test:getMyString}My Pretty string here...{/exp:test:getMyString} 

The first {exp:test} tag shouldn't be there (just checking ;) as that will only output "TEST: " because there is no tagdata and as mentioned, it may mess with the tag pair {exp:test:getMyString} because it outputs something.