title: Is it possible to access a method's variable that isn't a property of the object?
body: <p>So I have a class that I can't (not allowed to) modify and I need to extend one of the methods. The problem is that my child class's method needs to use a variable set locally in the parent method I'm extending. Here's what I mean:</p>
  
  <pre><code>class ParentClass 
  { 
      function process_data() 
      {
          $data['x'] = "This is some data.";
      }
  }
  
  class ChildClass extends ParentClass
  {
  
      function process_data() {
          parent::process_data();
          $clean_data = strtolower(parent::$data);
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there a way to access the local <code>$data</code> variable from the parent method without modifying the parent class in any way?</p>