Humm... The only thing I can think of is to do something like: $v = get_class_vars(get_class($this)); print_r($v['_staticvar']); Kind of a shitty hack, and it reminds me of one thing that pisses me off about php. Why can't we do: print_r(get_class_vars(get_class($this))['_staticvar']); Regards, John Campbell