PHP Static Variables
<p>I have a class which does some API (REST) functions. I'd like to declare the variable class-wide variable and static, so I won't fetch the data over and over again. (This is what I think in theory, could be wrong) Many methods in the class will need that data.</p>

<p>I am using this type of class but something doesn't look right. It is working, but 
(this is just an example class, not the real code);</p>

<pre><code>class Some_Process {

    private static $tickets = array();

    private function _get_tickets () {
        if(!self::$tickets) {
           $curl = curl_init();
           curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
           curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://someurl');

           self::$tickets = json_decode(curl_exec($curl));
           if(!self::$tickets) {
               return FALSE;
           }
           return TRUE;
        }
    }
    function process_tickets () {
       self::_get_tickets();
       //here I start using the varible
       do some job on .. self::$tickets;
    }   
}
</code></pre>
