PHP - define constant inside a class

This is and old question, but now on PHP 7.1 you can define constant visibility.

EXAMPLE

<?php
class Foo {
    // As of PHP 7.1.0
    public const BAR = 'bar';
    private const BAZ = 'baz';
}
echo Foo::BAR . PHP_EOL;
echo Foo::BAZ . PHP_EOL;
?>

Output of the above example in PHP 7.1:

bar

Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Cannot access private const Foo::BAZ in …

Note: As of PHP 7.1.0 visibility modifiers are allowed for class constants.

More info here

See Class Constants:

class MyClass
{
    const MYCONSTANT = 'constant value';

    function showConstant() {
        echo  self::MYCONSTANT. "\n";
    }
}

echo MyClass::MYCONSTANT. "\n";

$classname = "MyClass";
echo $classname::MYCONSTANT. "\n"; // As of PHP 5.3.0

$class = new MyClass();
$class->showConstant();

echo $class::MYCONSTANT."\n"; // As of PHP 5.3.0

In this case echoing MYCONSTANT by itself would raise a notice about an undefined constant and output the constant name converted to a string: "MYCONSTANT".

---

EDIT - Perhaps what you're looking for is this static properties / variables:

class MyClass
{
    private static $staticVariable = null;

    public static function showStaticVariable($value = null)
    {
        if ((is_null(self::$staticVariable) === true) && (isset($value) === true))
        {
            self::$staticVariable = $value;
        }

        return self::$staticVariable;
    }
}

MyClass::showStaticVariable(); // null
MyClass::showStaticVariable('constant value'); // "constant value"
MyClass::showStaticVariable('other constant value?'); // "constant value"
MyClass::showStaticVariable(); // "constant value"