call a static method inside a class?

Let's assume this is your class:

class Test
{
    private $baz = 1;

    public function foo() { ... }

    public function bar() 
    {
        printf("baz = %d\n", $this->baz);
    }

    public static function staticMethod() { echo "static method\n"; }
}

From within the foo() method, let's look at the different options:

$this->staticMethod();

So that calls staticMethod() as an instance method, right? It does not. This is because the method is declared as public static the interpreter will call it as a static method, so it will work as expected. It could be argued that doing so makes it less obvious from the code that a static method call is taking place.

$this::staticMethod();

Since PHP 5.3 you can use $var::method() to mean <class-of-$var>::; this is quite convenient, though the above use-case is still quite unconventional. So that brings us to the most common way of calling a static method:

self::staticMethod();

Now, before you start thinking that the :: is the static call operator, let me give you another example:

self::bar();

This will print baz = 1, which means that $this->bar() and self::bar() do exactly the same thing; that's because :: is just a scope resolution operator. It's there to make parent::, self:: and static:: work and give you access to static variables; how a method is called depends on its signature and how the caller was called.

To see all of this in action, see this 3v4l.org output.

self::staticMethod();

More information about the Static keyword.