title: zend_form access parent form element
body: <p>I couldn't find any reference on how to use a parent form element in a subclassed form. May be because it's obvious to everyone but me. It's got me stumped. This is what I tried.</p>
  
  <p>At first, within my form constructor I called</p>
  
  <pre><code>parent::__construct($options = null);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>then accessed the parent elements like this</p>
  
  <pre><code>$type = parent::setName($this-&gt;type);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The problem was that ALL the parent form elements would display whether explicitly called or not. Someone said, "don't use __construct(), use the init() function instead. So I changed the constructor to init(), commented out the parent constructor, then ran the form. It bombed saying it couldn't pass an empty value for setName(). I commented out all the seName() calls and the form ran, but only displayed the elements instantiated in the subclassed form.</p>
  
  <p>My question is this: If I don't use the parent constructor, how do i get and use the parent's form elements?</p>
  
  <p>Solved: Since the constructor was switched to init, the call to the parent also needed to be switched. Easy for someone with php background. Not so much for one who doesn't.</p>
  
  <p>Use</p>
  
  <pre><code>parent::init();
  </code></pre>