autoloading methods

Just a little php question.
I know its not the place to ask but I will be thankful if you can help
me.

How does method autoloading works in php.
for example if I call 
$lang->hello;
if the method hello does not exists then some other function can take
this argument and return a value according to that. For example make a
lookup in the data base etc.

Thanks


in perl I would do something like this.


package Dictionary;
sub new {my $self=shift; return bless {}, $self;};

sub AUTOLOAD{
        my $self=shift;
        my $name=$AUTOLOAD;
        $name=~s/.*://;
        return "You tried to access $name";
}

package main;
my $obj=Dictionary->new();
print $obj->test;

#this will print
You tried to access test





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