How would you access Object properties from within an object method?

Question: What is the "purist" or "correct" way to access an object's properties from within an object method that is not a getter/setter method?
I know that from outside of the object you should use a getter/setter, but from within would you just do:
Java:

String property = this.property;

PHP:

$property = $this->property;

or would you do:
Java:

String property = this.getProperty();

PHP:

$property = $this->getProperty();

I am talking about private or protected variables/properties only. When I learned OO I was taught to use getters/setters for every single property even if it was public (and actually I was told never to make any variable/property public). So, I may be starting off from a false assumption from the get go. It appears that people answering this question are maybe saying that you should have public properties and that those don't need getters and setters, which goes against what I was taught, and what I was talking about, although maybe that needs to be discussed as well. That's probably a good topic for a different question though...

Solution: This has religious war potential, but it seems to me that if you're using a getter/setter, you should use it internally as well - using both will lead to maintenance problems down the road (e.g. somebody adds code to a setter that needs to run every time that property is set, and the property is being set internally w/o that setter being called).

Flat File Databases

Question: What are your best practices around creating flat file database structures in PHP? A lot of the more mature PHP flat file frameworks I see out there attempt to implement SQL-like query syntax, which is over the top for my purposes in most cases (I would just use a database at that point).

Are there any elegant tricks out there to get good performance and features with the small code overhead one would want by taking on this problem in the first place?

Solution:  Well, what is the nature of the flat databases. Are they large or small. Is it simple arrays with arrays in them? if its something simple say userprofiles built as such:

$user = array("name" => "dubayou", 
              "age" => 20,
              "websites" => array("dubayou.com","willwharton.com","codecream.com"),
              "and_one" => "more");

and to save or update the db record for that user.

$dir = "../userdata/";  //make sure to put it bellow what the server can reach.
file_put_contents($dir.$user['name'],serialize($user));

and to load the record for the user

function get_user($name){
    return unserialize(file_get_contents("../userdata/".$name));
}

Best way to allow plugins for a PHP application

Question: I am starting a new web application in PHP and this time around I want to create something that people can extend by using a plugin interface.

How does one go about writing 'hooks' into their code so that plugins can attach to specific events?

Solution:

 You could use an Observer pattern. A simple functional way to accomplish this:

<?php

/** Plugin system **/

$listeners = array();

/* Create an entry point for plugins */
function hook() {
    global $listeners;

    $num_args = func_num_args();
    $args = func_get_args();

    if($num_args < 2)
        trigger_error("Insufficient arguments", E_USER_ERROR);

    // Hook name should always be first argument
    $hook_name = array_shift($args);

    if(!isset($listeners[$hook_name]))
        return; // No plugins have registered this hook

    foreach($listeners[$hook_name] as $func) {
        $args = $func($args); 
    }
    return $args;
}

/* Attach a function to a hook */
function add_listener($hook, $function_name) {
    global $listeners;
    $listeners[$hook][] = $function_name;
}

/////////////////////////

/** Sample Plugin **/
add_listener('a_b', 'my_plugin_func1');
add_listener('str', 'my_plugin_func2');

function my_plugin_func1($args) {
    return array(4, 5);
}

function my_plugin_func2($args) {
    return str_replace('sample', 'CRAZY', $args[0]);
}

/////////////////////////

/** Sample Application **/

$a = 1;
$b = 2;

list($a, $b) = hook('a_b', $a, $b);

$str  = "This is my sample application\n";
$str .= "$a + $b = ".($a+$b)."\n";
$str .= "$a * $b = ".($a*$b)."\n";

$str = hook('str', $str);
echo $str;
?>

Output

This is my CRAZY application
4 + 5 = 9
4 * 5 = 20

Notes: 

For this example source code, you must declare all your plugins before the actual source code that you want to be extendable. I've included an example of how to handle single or multiple values being passed to the plugin. The hardest part of this is writing the actual documentation which lists what arguments get passed to each hook. This is just one method of accomplishing a plugin system in PHP. There are better alternatives, I suggest you check out the WordPress Documentation for more information.