Block must know nothing about his parent

[stalniy]

Why? Example from life: children will never know all about his parents. So i think, you need to change Mage_Core_Block_Abstract::setParentBlock method to Mage_Core_Block_Abstract::setParentName. And rewrite Mage_Core_Block_Abstract::getParentBlock to

public function getParentBlock()
{
$layout = $this->getLayout();
if ($layout) {
return $layout->getBlock($this->_parentName);
}
}

[magento-team]

Hi @stalniy,

currently blocks don't store information about their parents. Layout object is responsible for storing all parent-child relations.
Mage_Core_Block_Abstract::setParentBlock() method was removed.
Mage_Core_Block_Abstract::getParentBlock() refers to its layout object for the information about the parent. Probably, this method will be removed in future, when all relations to parent blocks will be eliminated.