Q:

PHP OOP declaring properties

I have a simple inquiry, about OOP properties.
I am learning OOP. Currently, I am using CodeIgniter, and planning to move to Symfony. I want to learn OOP principles before diving in. Hope you guide me.
I just want to ask what is the difference between declaring properties like this:
FIRST:
class MyClass {
    public $name;

    public $age;

    public function someMethod()
    {

    }
}

VS
SECOND:
class MyClass {

    public function someMethod()
    {
        $name = '';
        $age = 0;
    }
}

From my understanding I will use the SECOND method if the variables/properties will be used ONLY by that method.
And the FIRST method will be used if the property/variable will be used by different methods within the class.
Hope you can enlighten me with this one. This is how I declare properties now.
Thanks, I would appreciate all your comments and shared knowledge.

A:

You should read through the php documentation on variable scope. http://php.net/manual/en/language.variables.scope.php
Your first example would be global scope, meaning that it is accessible by any method of that class. The second example is local scope, and any variable used inside a function is by default limited to the local function scope.

