PHP __get and __set magic methods

__get, __set, __call and __callStatic are invoked when the method or property is inaccessible. Your $bar is public and therefor not inaccessible.

See the section on Property Overloading in the manual:

• __set() is run when writing data to inaccessible properties.
• __get() is utilized for reading data from inaccessible properties.

The magic methods are not substitutes for getters and setters. They just allow you to handle method calls or property access that would otherwise result in an error. As such, there are much more related to error handling. Also note that they are considerably slower than using proper getter and setter or direct method calls.

I'd recommend to use an array for storing all values via __set().

class foo {

    protected $values = array();

    public function __get( $key )
    {
        return $this->values[ $key ];
    }

    public function __set( $key, $value )
    {
        $this->values[ $key ] = $value;
    }

}

This way you make sure, that you can't access the variables in another way (note that $values is protected), to avoid collisions.

From the PHP manual:

• __set() is run when writing data to inaccessible properties.
• __get() is utilized for reading data from inaccessible properties.

This is only called on reading/writing inaccessible properties. Your property however is public, which means it is accessible. Changing the access modifier to protected solves the issue.