PHP Class Question

I've been working on a large PHP project here at work, and I have a quick
class question regarding 'classes' in PHP, since what I am seeing in my code
tends to be opposite of what the PHP manual on the web page ( ie:
http://www.php.net) and a couple other books I've seen
say.

First, I'm an advanced user of C/C++ and Perl, and I've
done a good amount of PHP work already (I just haven't
used PHP with 'classes' yet .. ie: OO ).

According to the PHP manual, PHP classes are 'public' and any variable and
methods within these classes are 'public' as well.  For example, if I had
the following variable $temp_var and the following function 'temp_func'
then I could access them the following way:

$class_object = new TempClass();
$class_object->temp_var = 3;
echo 'Temp Var = $class_object->temp_var';
$return = $class_object->temp_func();
echo 'Temp func return = $return';

Now, I can not get this behavior to work in any sort of way.  I have,
however, figured out that the 'class variables' and 'class methods' are in
many ways 'private'.   I can not access 'class variables' unless I 'global'
them IN the 'class functions' themselves.  For example, the following code
fragment shows what I am doing to access the class variables within class
functions.

class TempClass
{
    var $temp_var;

    function TempFunc()
    {
        global $temp_var;
        $temp_var = 3;
        echo $temp_var;
    }
}

I can not access a class variable unless its 'global'.  My question is:

"Is the manual wrong, or has something in the PHP language changed?"

Thanks,

-
Jeremiah Spradlin - [email protected] - System Support Specialist I
Office of Information Technology - Georgia Institute of Technology